


Two Cities

by EllenD



Series: Intrepid [2]
Category: Batman (Comics), Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, DCU
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Dark, Disturbing Themes, Humiliation, M/M, Psychological Torture, Slow Build, Torture
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-08
Updated: 2018-06-04
Packaged: 2018-06-07 03:05:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 17
Words: 95,689
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6782782
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EllenD/pseuds/EllenD
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A prequel to Nairomi, but can be read as standalone. Clark Kent, is simply Clark Kent, junior reporter for the Daily Planet who moved to Metropolis from Smallville with big dreams. Bruce Wayne is a billionaire playboy from Gotham, who also happens to be Batman. They meet, date, and fall in love, though not without hurdles because mild-mannered Clark is also socially awkward as heck. But when the most dangerous criminals in Gotham are gunning for Batman, Clark gets caught in the middle of it all. (He's basically Batman's Lois Lane) Meant to be set in the Dawn of Justice movie universe, but also draws inspiration from video games, comics, and those awesome Batman cartoons.</p><p>Now with beautiful fanart:<br/>By <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/users/kaijusizefeels/pseuds/kaijusizefeels">Kaijusizefeels</a> <a href="http://mykaijusizefeels.tumblr.com/post/144585365480/inspired-by-ellends-intrepid-series">here</a><br/>And by <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/users/Albilibertea/pseuds/Albilibertea">Albilibertea</a> <a href="http://p0werbottomsuperman.tumblr.com/post/145408043930/my-fav-scene-from-ellends-two-cities-its-soooo">here</a></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Gotham

**Author's Note:**

> No copyright infringement intended, no profits made! Please heed the warnings and tags posted above.

“Look up, Bruce,” his mother had once said, during the Time Before. She held his hand in hers, sticky four-year-old fingers against Italian leather gloves, clicking down Park Row on her kitten heels with an umbrella and a box of French pastries under her arm.

“Don’t look down,” she’d said, pointing her umbrella to the sky, a raindrop perched perfectly on the tip like a jewel. “The city is beautiful, Honey. There’s so much more to see if you look up.” His concentration then, however, was on the ground, stomping puddles with gleeful violence.

Decades-older Bruce Wayne strode down the Gotham streets and agreed with his mother. The towering buildings drew your eyes upwards, away from the dark piss-stained backstreets and broken bottles, and towards the stars, just like the vaulted stained glass windows in a cathedral drew your eyes upwards to Heaven. A trick of architecture. From the ground, looking up, the city was beautiful.

“Beauty can be wherever you choose to see it,” his mother once said, from Before.

_Clark…_

But Batman, who saw the city from above, knew that if you took a left from the designer watch shop on the corner and walked two blocks, there was an alleyway where a mid-level mob boss and his family had been murdered by a rival gang. The blood on the pavement would remain until the next good rain. He knew that two miles due west was an ugly sprawl of abandoned warehouses bearing the logos of long-extinct companies, serving nowadays as a mafia market for buying and selling anything under the sun, no matter how perverse. Posters of naked, stretched-out women adorned the walls of underground cellars while men sat around poker tables and talked prostitution and illegal arms, flesh and death, and chased sin down with scotch. He knew that prostitutes wandered the eastside with switchblades in their garters and haunted looks in their eyes, poison running through their emaciated bodies.

And he knew that Lizzie Stride, the face and name on the MISSING poster flapping in the breeze from the corner telephone pole, had been found dead a week after disappearing on her way home from visiting old Nana Stride. She was found hung naked, swaying like the condemned, from a clothesline looped double around her neck. The newspapers reported that she had died of strangulation. Only certain local lawmen (and Batman) knew the additional disturbing details. That her nails were found freshly painted, a blotchy job that spilled over her fingertips and knuckles, most likely done without her consent. That sometime during the week of her captivity, someone had shaved her. Legs, underarms, and groin. That sometime before death, a thick smear of lipstick and silver dollar discs of rouge had been applied to her face. That her body bore clear signs of rape and sodomy.

Bruce shoved his hands deeper into his coat pockets and walked faster. 9 o’clock and it was freezing, a dark starless night. It matched his dark mood. Morose, because of the three voicemail messages he’d left on Clark’s phone.

_Hey, it’s me. I got here a little early. Meet you at our usual table._

_Hey Slowpoke, did you get caught up? Call me when you get a chance. I… call me._

_Hey… where are you? You aren’t answering your texts. Listen, if this is about earlier today… I meant what I said, you know. I meant every word. You can tell me the truth. There’s no pressure. Just… call me. Come see me. Or let me come see you. I… just need to hear your voice._

Morose, because Lizzie, eternally young, eternally beautiful, and eternally dead Lizzie, was the third of a string of murders that had popped up in Gotham. Serge Marko, found partially skinned and toothless with a gummy rictus grin on his face, had been hanging off the bridge from his neck by his own belt. One testicle missing. Mouth smeared with red lipstick. Alex Chapel, found hanging from a tree in Midtown Park. Burn marks and signs of torture. Signs of forced sodomy. Mouth smeared with red lipstick.

All humiliatingly, publically displayed, meant to be found soon after death. No witnesses. No evidence linking back to the killer. Or killers. Even Batman had no leads, despite the number of people he’d dangled from heights in the past few days.

_Lizzie Stride, Serge Marko, Alex Chapel_. He repeated their names in his head until they buzzed loudly in his ears, like an accusation.

_Clark…_

Bruce passed by a store display of TV sets, the sickly light of the monitors washing over him. Garish cartoon animals chased each other across the screen, an aproned housewife smiled maniacally at a new blender, a weatherman nodded earnestly at next week’s forecast. He sighed. The club sandwich he’d eaten alone was turning sour in his stomach.

He should call a car, instead of wandering the streets. Get dropped off at the lake house. Coffee. See Alfred about the new upgrades to his gear. Get changed. Come back as Batman. Pursue a new lead that seemed promising…

He felt it a second before it actually happened, an electric tingling in his gut, a premonition that crackled like static. All at once, every electronic screen on the street blacked out. The hoard of storefront monitors went dark next to him. The giant HD screen on the tallest building in Gotham went from advertising fruity pop drinks to going completely dark. Even the little TV screens in the passing taxi cabs blinked out.

Some people murmured uneasily, most just looked confused and kept walking.

“Is that a power outage?” a woman remarked to no one in particular.

Then, very single screen snapped on again and crazed laughter filled the air.

Bruce froze. _It can’t be_ …

The Joker’s face blazed across every screen in Gotham. It leered down at Bruce from the heights, smirked at him from behind glass showcases, peered at him from mobile tablets.

_Good evening ladies and gentlemen, fellow monsters and inmates! It’s me, Gotham’s most beloved comedian!_

It couldn’t be. Joker was locked securely back at Arkham. There had been no reports of a break-out.

_It’s my very great joy to tell you: I’m cured! No longer mad! Arkham has released me, though they were so sad to see me go. I’m as sane as any one of you. And you’re all just as sane as I am._ He paused to cackle, head thrown back. When he composed himself, there was a dangerous, homicidal glint in his eye.

_Oh, it’s been a long time. But what do I find has happened in my absence? No respect. My allies, disbanded. My holdings, gone. My eastside investments, gone. My slice of the pie,_ gone gone gone!

He turned out his pants pockets, comically holding out the empty pouches with a forlorn look on his face. _After serving my time in the loony bin, I come out to find myself bankrupt. Broke. Bust. Belly up. Financially fucking insolvent!_

Joker’s voice rose to a scream. In rage, he swung both fists at the camera, which tilted, wobbled, then righted itself. _The empire I’ve lovingly built with my own two hands, gone. What good is money without power? Gotham is_ mine. _And I mean to have what’s mine._

Bruce’s blood ran cold. Joker’s fit of pique had left the camera at an angle, exposing a bowed figure in the background. A bare back and shoulders.

_I’m sure by now, the trained monkeys that call themselves the Gotham police have found my… presents. Well, that was just a teaser. The setup for the real punchline._

The camera re-focused on the figure in the background. It was a man, kneeling on what looked like a bare warehouse floor. Naked, stripped, with a bag over his head and hands tied.

“No,” whispered Bruce. His mind blocked out the Joker’s insane rambling, blocked out the frightened murmurs of the people on the street. It _can’t_ be. It _couldn’t_ be. But his eyes told him the merciless truth. He knew that body. Even through the grainy image, he knew. He knew the slant of those hips, that curve where his hand rested so naturally, like it was made for him. He knew that birthmark on the right shoulder, those slightly asymmetrical collarbones.   

_Clark…_ It couldn’t be. Clark was safe in Metropolis, safe and far away from this shit-stained, blood-stained city.

His blood felt like ice in his veins. He felt his hands clenching and unclenching, grasping at nothing. What was the last thing Clark had said to him? He couldn’t remember…

In a moment of weakness, he stumbled, fell into another guy, “Hey buddy, you alright?”

That moment passed quickly. Weakness turned into cold, murderous, fury. He drew the phone from his pocket and snapped it up, hitting speed dial. “Alfred, are you seeing this?” he said, his voice like steel.

“Unfortunately, Master Wayne, I am.”

“Find out where it’s broadcasting from.”

“Searching.”

The Joker was removing the bag now, revealing a face that Bruce already knew, smeared in clown’s makeup with black-rimmed glasses carefully perched in front of dazed, drugged-looking eyes.

“Transmitting the location to you now, sir.”

Bruce looked down at his phone. It was no more than half a mile from his location, towards the docks. He pushed through the crowd, heading off at a dead run, turning his back on the image of Joker pulling Clark up by the hair, tilting his head up, kissing his mouth so that red greasepaint smeared over Clark’s face like blood. Licking his lips.

Impossible. It was impossible. The thoughts ran through his head like mice in a maze as he pelted down Midtown Gotham. Joker was in Arkham. He couldn’t have had anything to do with the murders. Batman had checked, in person, after the first murder had been discovered, and then again when Lizzie Stride had been found. The clown had been sullen and spiteful, but secure behind bars.

“Master Wayne, I understand your haste, but perhaps it would serve you better to rendezvous back at the-”

“Not now, Alfred,” he panted, as paved concrete gave way to cobblestones beneath his feet. “He’s _right there,_ I can get to him.”

Clark… He had to get to Clark. Like a horror film that he couldn’t close his eyes to, the image of Clark dead, naked, and strung up like the others invaded his mind, made him crazy. No, no, _no…_

“Master Wayne, you have no weaponry, no equipment-”

“I don’t need weapons to _break Joker in half_.”

What was the last thing Clark had said to him? Bruce remembered now, as the damp wind tore at his clothes and the smell of wet sewage assaulted his nostrils. Clark hadn’t said anything at all. The last thing he’d given Bruce wasn’t words, but a kiss that tasted of double espresso (Clark always drank a double espresso when he had field work) and sweet relish.

_“It’s ok,” said Bruce, folding Clark’s fingers over the ring. “You don’t have to say anything. In fact, don’t say anything at all. Just think about it, ok? Tell me tonight, if you’re ready. I’ll wait for you, at our usual place. Our usual table.” A breathless smile from Clark, which slowly widened into that familiar 1000-watt grin. Arms flung around Bruce. No words, just a kiss._

Bruce swung the pipe as hard as he could, broke the rusted chain, which clattered to the ground. Almost as an afterthought, he wrapped his Rolex around his knuckles. Kicked down the door to the warehouse. Ran in.

“Alfred,” he croaked, “there’s nothing here.”

“You’re right on top of the signal, sir.”

He whirled around, seeing nothing but an empty room, with one naked bulb swinging from the ceiling. Nothing, except…

 “Oh, hell…”

“Bruce,” Alfred’s voice crackled urgently over the comm. “Get out of there. I think it’s a trap.”

He’d already started sprinting for the entrance at “Bruce.” He’d just reached the threshold at “trap,” when the bomb went off.

 

 


	2. Metropolis

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No copyright infringement intended, no profits made!

He flew. The explosion propelled him forward like a rag doll, shattering brick and pulping wood behind him. The concussive force tore up one side of his body as he fell at an angle, crushing ribs and punching the breath out of his lungs in an explosive sigh.

Shrapnel tore through clothes, skin, flesh, ripped at the arms that he’d thrown up instinctively over his head and neck.

Time seemed to slow. He flew for an eternity, wreathed in flame. Heat scorched his skin, hot like the brands he used on Gotham’s worst criminals. But the brands on his own skin were not in the shape of a bat. _Clark,_ written on the back of his hand. _Clark,_ across his forehead in a bloody streak. _Clark_ , sizzled across his nape. _Clark, Clark, Clark,_ each brand an accusation, and he, the worst criminal of all.

 _He’d failed_. 

He barely felt it when he hit the ground, bouncing on wet stone. In his flaming periphery, he saw Clark’s lopsided smile, full of earnest beauty. What was the last thing Clark had said to him? What was the first? He struggled to remember as the fire engulfed him.

 

X

_About 1 year ago…_

 

“Stop!” The voice came from around a cold corner in Riverside Gotham.

Batman neither stopped nor slowed as he drew his fist back for another punch.

 _BAM_ “Who’s been running guns for Maroni?” _SMACK_

“I don’t know anything, I tells ya!”yelped Vinny, the disgruntled mob henchman. (Disgruntled because of the general dissatisfaction and toxic work environment that comes with a mob job, and because he spent the last 15 minutes with Batman’s boot in his face.)

“Where’s he getting the guns?” _WHAM_

“I said _stop_!” An empty Fanta can of all things sailed through the air and bounced off Batman’s cape. “Don’t you think he’s had enough?” The newcomer’s tone was one of confident indignation, like a mother who expected her scolding to be obeyed. _Young man, don’t you dare…_

Batman barely turned his head from his gurgling prey, scanning the stranger with a sideways glance. Male. Young. Unarmed, a civilian. Glasses and shabby raincoat.

“Stay out of this,” he growled.

“I’ve already called the police,” said Glasses, brandishing a cellphone. “They’ll be here in minutes.”

Anger flared up, hot and dangerous. Damn misguided meddler. He responded by throwing poor Vinny into the cracked concrete wall, where he slid down into a whimpering ball. Batman reached into his belt and drew out wire and zip ties. The interrogation was a bust. Vinny was too low-level to know anything useful about Maroni’s plans, and Batman  had no time to waste roughing him up if the police were on their way. Best he could do was truss up the guy for the cops to find.

“You’re him, aren’t you?” said Glasses, stepping closer, completely unafraid. “I thought if I wandered around the worst parts of Gotham, I’d see you eventually. The Batman. That is what they call you, right?” He glanced down at the mobster. “Why were you beating this man? What did he do to deserve that?”

Batman ignored him. With ruthless efficiency, he zip-tied Vinny’s hands behind his back then gagged him with his own tie, if for no other reason than to stem the flow of _yeah, listen to the kid, what’d I do to deserve this, it ain’t right, I tells ya, it’s fucked up is what…_

“Are you aware that you’re violating this man’s civil rights by unlawfully restraining him? And that any evidence you’ve extracted from him won’t be admissible in court?” The word _extracted_ was hissed out between his teeth, laden with judgement. He took another step, almost on top of Batman now, and reached out a hand as if to grab a black-caped shoulder. Stupid.

“Does presumption of innocence mean anything to-”

Batman looped wire twice around Vinny’s ankles, rose smoothly to his feet, grabbed Glasses by the shirtfront and slammed him against the nearest wall. Not hard enough to break anything, but none too gently either.

To his credit, the guy didn’t even flinch. He struggled briefly, but all attempts at an escape were met by Batman’s hard, unyielding armored-clad body. They glared at each other across the distance of a handspan, the closeness somehow both dangerous and intimate.

“Were you after him because he has mob connections?” Glasses continued with barely a hitch in his voice. Midwestern accent. Clean-looking. No scent of alcohol or drugs. Lanyard around his neck and disappearing under his jacket, most likely a press ID at the end. Certainly bold enough, but lacking the world-weariness that weighed down even Gotham’s youngest and most idealistic reporters.

“You’re not from around here, are you?” said Batman. He a tremor run through the body against his. Cold or afraid?

“Why, what are you going to do?” Glasses said lowly, his breath misting in the air. “Brand me? Kill me?”

“No.” Batman released him, took three steps back, and shot him. “Just this.”

“Ow!” yelped Glasses, like he’d been pinched. He patted his pockets frantically. “What did you do to me?”

Batman lowered the EMP mechanism and re-holstered it in his belt. “Just shorted out any recording devices and phones you have hidden on you.”

If Glasses looked indignant before, he was now apoplectic. “First of all, I don’t record without permission. That’s highly unethical. And the Blackberry? Company property, by the way. Thanks a lot.” He pointed, actually pointed a finger, at Batman’s chest. “And _secondly_ , do you know that a major percent of fires each year are caused by electrical arcing? You could’ve barbequed me!”

Batman’s glare was nearly incredulous as he fired a grapple into the air, launching both himself and Vinny upwards.

X

The first time Batman met Clark Kent was in a dark alley on a cold Gotham night. The first time that Bruce Wayne met him was three days later, at a party in Metropolis.

Lex Luthor was hosting a gala for the Metropolis Public Library, and Bruce was mechanically slurping champagne to make it bearable. It was his fourth function of the week and he never did like crowds much. The necessity that he appeared to enjoy himself regardless of his actual feelings set him on edge, made his teeth itch for a drink, and then another. He abstained for the first 15 minutes, nursing a single flute of bubbly, but then decided that he could afford to drink, not too much, but just enough to soften the edges of the world.

He knew the crowd well, been to enough galas and charity dinners to pick out the familiar types of people. There were the CEO’s and high-profile traders, gathered in groups of two or three, shaking hands over glasses of hard liquor to seal business deals. Only here for the networking. There were the modern trust-fund youths, educated and opinionated, who traveled extensively and barely read anything that wasn’t downloaded to a tablet. The society ladies, who “loved books” and donated generously but wouldn’t be caught dead in a public library with the squalling toddlers and the piss-smelling homeless men who wandered in each week for a few hours of quiet refuge. The rich men with beautiful girls draped on their arms, who owned entire libraries of identically-bound books that dwarfed some of the lesser Metropolis branches. Who cut checks for shiny specific things, like an entire wing of computers or a designer mural, but ignored the leaky roof or cracked floor tiles.

And then there were the actual library people, directors and regional managers. The ones from the smaller branches in the worse neighborhoods knew, with dreadful clarity, that the Luthor-funded renovation only extended to the bigger and more beautiful libraries. They gave out frequent handshakes and too-wide smiles as they greeted their way around the room, convincing themselves that they weren’t groveling for money.

Between all of them, the press fluttered to and fro, taking statements. Notepads and pens. Snapping shutters. An already-dying, already digital industry trying to publisize printed books.

“Clark Kent, _Daily Planet_.”

Bruce paused with the champagne glass halfway to his mouth. Speak of the Devil. _Hello, Glasses…_

“ _Daily Planet_ … Do I own this one, or s’that the other guy?” Bruce slurred, acting drunker than he actually was so he could take his time in studying this Clark Kent. He would be from Metropolis. No one that fresh-faced from Gotham would wander the streets at night, hoping to run into trouble.

Kent smiled a laughing smile, one that photographers would call a “million dollar” smile before they snapped the picture. “No, I don’t think you pay my bills, Mr. Wayne.”

“Ah. Pleasure to meet you.” The handshake was firm and lingering.

“So what brings you all the way from Gotham to Metropolis?”

“I couldn’t say no to an open bar.” He took what seemed like a real swallow of champagne. Smirk, wink.

“Ha, no doubt. Now, you’ve given generously to the Metropolis Library in the past. Can we count on your support in the years to come?”

Casual hand wave. “Well, sure. The Wayne Foundation has always been in support of books, education.”

“And do you have a good feeling about the library’s Free Wifi Initiative?”

“Yeah, I think it’s a great idea. Very beneficial to the community.”

“What’s your position on the Bat vigilante in Gotham?”

Bruce froze for a heartbeat, his fingers tight enough to almost snap the glass stem. Did Kent know…? No, there was only inquisitiveness in his expression, not accusation.

 “What?” He pretended to look around, dazed and smiling. “Sorry, got distracted by a pretty girl. Bad habit.”

“Civil liberties are being trampled on in your city. Good people living in fear.” There it was, the steel beneath that sunny exterior.

 “Don’t believe everything you hear, son,” he said.

“I’ve _seen_ it, Mr. Wayne. With my own eyes.” _Blue eyes, glaring at Batman from behind rain-damp glasses. Challenging._ “He thinks he’s above the law.”

Bruce took a deliberate sip of his drink, half hating himself for being caught off-guard. It was a classic reporter’s trick: lob softball questions at someone so they got into the habit of answering, then nail them with something provocative. Take notes on the schmuck’s reaction.

“You know what, my foundation’s already released a statement, and I’ve just told you all I care to. Now, if you’ll excuse me, there’s a _gorgeous_ pair of legs at 3 o’clock I need to say hello to.”

“Mr. Wayne…”

Bruce dropped his glass onto a passing tray and picked up a fresh one. He hated crowds, but they were easy to disappear into. And he hated clingy reporters more. This one was especially irritating. Intriguing, to be sure, but irritating, and he was too buzzed to be in the mood for either.

He drank some more, kissed and/or shook a few hands, and flirted his way through half the women in the room, all the while keeping a side eye on Kent. He raised an eyebrow when he saw the journalist chatting amiably with Mrs. Carrington, a notoriously sex-starved retiree who had inherited a chain of luxury high rises from her late husband. Bruce was willing to bet that she never set a pinky toe in a library her whole life.

He watched her whisper something funny into Kent’s ear, raking her nails down his sleeve. Watched him laugh dutifully. Watched her tilt her head back at an angle that must have showed off a smooth white swan’s neck in her youth.

Bruce dodged around the hors d’oeuvre table and reached for another drink. He didn’t know why, but Kent mentioning Batman set him in a dark mood. It was hardly the first tie the press had grilled him about the Bat. Why did it bother him now?

He was halfway to drunk when Kent found him again.

“Mr. Wayne, I’m so glad I found you again.”

“Have you tried these crostini?” Bruce asked loudly, grabbing a tray of them off the table and shoving them under Kent’s nose. “They’re just _sickeningly_ good. Some kind of cheese, I think.”

“Uh, no thanks. Listen, I wanted apologize for catching you on the raw back there. I didn’t plan to ask you those questions about Batman. In fact, my boss told me specifically not to.”

Bruce lowered the snack tray, annoyed at how Kent immediately took that as an invitation to step into Bruce’s personal space.

“It’s just that… well, you’re one of the most influential people in Gotham and I figured you _must_ have an opinion on the man who consistently targets the poorest districts in your city.”

Bruce could feel his jaw tightening. He smiled deliberately, carefully. “I’m no expert on caped vigilantes. I’m happy to talk about Batman and his fairly atrocious fashion choices, but don’t you think the police would be a better source?”

Kent sighed. It was almost comical the way he did it, eyes drooping, chin dipping into his chest with the exhale, frowning like a kicked puppy. “As far as I can tell, the police are actually helping him.” He brightened. “And in fact, you’re a prefect source. Because you’ve always stood up for the unfortunate in Gotham, haven’t you?”

Bruce cocked his head to the side, looking askance at Kent. He didn’t buy the babe-in-the-woods act, the “intrepid but naively earnest rookie reporter” gig. Not for a second. What was this guy’s angle? 

“The Wayne Foundation provides help, real help, to those in need. Getting them back on their feet, helping out entire families. I especially admire your hand in the Gotham boy’s orphanage. I can’t claim to personally know what it’s like for them, but I’ve known kids back at home who grew up without parents. It’s a hard thing, Mr. Wayne. A sad thing.”

Bruce lowered his eyes. Envisioned what he saw all too often. Young men with angry faces, lounging in alleyways with stolen liquor and switchblades. Villains in the making.

Kent touched Bruce’s arm. “You give them hope. In fact, if you don’t mind me saying, sir… I… just wanted to let you know that you’re kinda my hero.”

Bruce looked down at Kent’s lingering hand, then back up at his smiling face. Kent bit his lower lip, blushing slightly.

 _Oh, I see_. So that’s how it was. Clark Glasses Kent had a sex drive. And he was hardly the first man to fall for Bruce Wayne. The provocative questions about Batman had probably been some odd way of flirting. Throwing a baited challenge at Gotham’s most eligible bachelor and hoping he’d bite. He should have known. No one smiled with such earnest beauty and meant it. No one gushed praise and admiration without an ulterior motive. Not where Bruce came from.

His eyes gave Kent a slow, heated once-over. The kid wasn’t bad-looking. The baggy, outdated suit couldn’t hide his lean, muscular physique. Neither could the coke-bottle glasses hide his fairly stunning face, now that Bruce took a closer look.

Kent wanted him.

_Fierce blue eyes, glaring up at him from behind damp glasses. A lean body, trapped between concrete and a fully-armored Batman. Mouth pursed in an angry bud. “What are you going to do to me?”_

Yes, he could want Kent as well.

X

Despite the fact that his long-awaited meeting with the Batman had turned up nothing but a broken phone, and despite that Perry had relegated him to sports and entertainment as punishment, Clark was having a great time. Perry had always coached him to be objective when reporting (“Don’t have too much fun, don’t talk too much, let the other people do the talking, and don’t _gush_ for crying out loud! You’re there to investigate, not appreciate. Also, don’t die or fall in love, at least not on the _Planet_ ’s time…”), but seriously, he was having a ball. There was something about the glamour, the music, and the hushed, cultured voices that made him giddy, made him feel like he’d entered another world.

He spent a good chunk of the night talking to a sweet silver-haired lady that reminded him of Mom, about efforts to renovate the Gifford branch’s historic floor tiles. “Blue marble tiles imported from Greece,” said Mrs. Carrington, a faraway look in her eyes. “Installed nearly a hundred years ago. Each square different from the others. Absolutely beautiful. I used to skip over them when I was a girl because I didn’t want to leave my footprints on them. I used to count the missing tiles that broke off, each time I visited the library.”

She smelled of Chanel No. 5. He’d bought Mom a bottle of off-brand perfume, the only type he could afford, for the first Christmas after he’d moved to Metropolis. The guy who’d peddled it to him swore up and down that it smelled _exactly like_ Chanel No. 5. To his mortification, it actually smelled like someone drank Chanel No. 5 and then peed it back out. But Mom still dabbed some on her wrist and displayed the flaking gold bottle on her vanity like a trophy.

“Before Lex stepped in, I’d been thinking of holding a charity event myself, to raise money for the floor,” Mrs. Carrington was saying, whispering conspiratorially and smiling with one side of her mouth, as if sharing a secret. “A charity auction, hosted at the chateau. A good reason as any to throw a party, and Honey, I can throw them much better than Lex can. I would have loved to have you there as my _special_ guest, Sweetheart.”

“Oh, I’m sure it’d be quite a story,” said Clark, smiling. “I’d’ve loved to report on it.” In his notebook, he wrote down _charity auction, chateau,_ and _cocktails_. _Future development? Pitch to Perry._ “Can I get you on record as to what kind of auction it would be?”

She stared at him a second, then laughed and raked her pink nails lightly over his sleeve. They matched the pink champagne in her glass, and the pink ring of lipstick she left on the rim. “These are antiques, you know,” she said, tilting her head to show him a pear-shaped diamond earring dangling from a wrinkled lobe. “I have a few other pieces I’d be willing to let go, for a good cause. I’ve bought so many over the years, and gotten so many as gifts too.”

“They’re beautiful,” said Clark, goggling a bit. (She beamed at that.) He’d be willing to bet that one of them cost more than the Kent farm. “Could you bear to sell them?”

“My mother-in-law, God rest her soul, gave these to me. To hell with her.” She threw her silver head back and laughed, then mock-glared at him. “Don’t put that in your paper.”

He crossed out _to hell with her_.

He was about to ask her for something he could quote, but she was staring over his shoulder. “Well, well. The Prince of Gotham himself. Bruce Wayne.”

Clark turned, mouth half-open to say something, then let his jaw drop slack.

 _Bruce Wayne_. He knew that name. He knew the face from newspaper pictures and blog posts. He felt his stomach flip in excitement.

“Excuse me, ma’am,” he murmured, and headed for the man in the suit, only vaguely remembering that Perry would be ecstatic for a quote from one of Gotham city’s elite.

His first attempt at talking to Wayne backfired, but he didn’t let the brush-off discourage him. Eventually, after a confusing turn around the ballroom, two politely rebuffed offers for champagne, and another conversation with Mrs. Carrington, he found his way back to the man of interest.

The words came tumbling out of him, unstoppable. All the honest, true thoughts that were rolling around in his head, no matter how much they embarrassed him.

“I… just wanted to let you know that you’re kinda my hero.”

He could almost hear Perry White’s scolding. _Stop gushing, Kent! Grown man gushing like that creeps people out. Hell, it creeps_ me _out. And wipe that goofy grin off your face._

But to his triumph (take that, Perry!) Bruce Wayne warmed up considerably after that. He became more open, smiling and responding to Clark’s hundred and one questions about Gotham. “Call me Bruce,” he said. Even his body language was more friendly. At one point, he even stepped close enough that his breath ruffled Clark’s ear. He didn’t even leave in a huff when Clark hinted gingerly that he’d like something on record about Batman.

“You know,” said Bruce, leaning close so that his breath ghosted down Clark’s neck. “I’ve got a penthouse suite at the Hotel Grand Lux. You know where that is, right?”

Clark nodded. “Sure, the metro takes you right down the block from-”

“Meet me there tomorrow night. I’ll leave your name with the receptionist.”

“S-sir?”

“You’re a pretty curious man, Mr. Kent. I kinda like that. Tomorrow night, I can give you all the answers you want. Among… other things.” He whispered the last two words directly into Clark’s ear. He could almost feel the other man’s lips on his earlobe.

Clark’s stomach flipped. Did Bruce Wayne just invite him over tomorrow night for an exclusive interview about Gotham City? He felt the beginnings of a triumphant grin. Tried to tone it down. Actively stopped himself from dong a fist-pump.

“So?” Bruce whispered conspiratorially, like a spy. “What do you say?”

“That would be spwell,” said Clark, his tongue tripping over “super” and “swell” before his brain could decide which to use. His ears colored.

Bruce chuckled. “I’ll see you.” He touched Clark’s chin before he left, sweeping his thumb lightly over the cleft.

Huh. That was weird. Maybe he was going for a chin chuck. Did people still do that?

He chucked Lois under the chin the next morning when he greeted her at the office. She gave him a weird look.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much for reading!


	3. Penthouse

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No copyright infringement intended, no profits made! Please heed the warnings and tags posted above.
> 
> Please check out the absolutely beautiful art by kaijusizefeels at http://mykaijusizefeels.tumblr.com/post/144585365480/inspired-by-ellends-intrepid-series featuring an adorable rendition of Clark!

 “Kent, get in here!” came Perry White’s bellow at exactly 9:30am.

Coffee sloshed from Clark’s favorite Superman mug onto his tie. He blotted it absently with one hand, hitting “save” on his sports piece: _Star Pitcher for the Metropolis Monarchs Comes Out of Retirement for the 8 th Time, Fans No Longer Surprised_. Standing, he shoved the last fragment of bagel into his mouth and his bulging note binder under his arm.

“Good luck, Smallville,” Lombard snarked at him as he passed.

“Good article on the gala last night,” Perry greeted him shortly as Clark shuffled into the chief’s office. Papers sprawled in piles on his desk, stacks of them sat like concrete blocks on the floor. Perry printed out everything, from press releases to lunch receipts. A plain bagel with a single bite mark sat on a napkin in the southwest corner of his desk. Next to it, a wobbly boiled egg. Clark knew without even looking that the coffee cup was already close to empty. “Cut all the unnecessary embellishments, and you’ve got a great article. Don’t wear rose tint on those glasses next time, got it? Just tell it like it is.”

“Yessir.”

Perry brandished a printout of the email Clark had sent along with the article attachment. “What do you mean you got an exclusive interview with Bruce Wayne?”

“I spoke to him at the party. He made an appointment with me for tonight at his hotel.”

Perry crumpled the paper into a ball. His expression warred between irascible and impressed. “And how’d you manage that, Cub? Our people have been trying to get an exclusive with the Prince of Gotham for years. We’ve tried everything from emails to carrier pigeons without a single reply. You just happen to bump into him over hors d'oeuvres and he says yes?”

Clark made a shrugging motion with his hands. “It’s all about the human interaction, Perry.”

“Alright, wipe that smug grin off your face. You got lucky. Now here’s what you’re gonna get from him,” Perry ticked items off his fingers. “Get a quote about Wayne Enterprise’s corporate strategy. Find out if their tech division is developing anything new, especially anything scary. The scarier, the sexier. Doomsday weapons, chemical weapons, nanotech weapons, chemically-enhanced nanotech doomsday weapons, stuff like that. And find out if there’s any potential expansion into Metropolis.”

Clark snapped open his notebook and wrote _Corporate Strategy, Product Lines,_ and _Expansion_ in a list down the page. After a moment’s hesitation, he added _Batman???_ at the bottom. He heard Bruce Wayne whispering in his ear. _I can give you all the answers you want. Among… other things._ The last two words echoed in his mind, and he felt a flush coming on for some reason. Maybe he was coming down with something. Must remember to take vitamin C. He cleared his throat. “I, uh… actually might be able to get something about a… person of interest… involved in the crime issue in Gotham City.”

He forged ahead at Perry’s raised eyebrow. “Mr. Wayne hinted to that he’d be willing to go on record about the bat vigilante-”

“For crying out loud!” Perry smacked the surface of his desk, causing a pile of papers to flutter and the boiled egg to wobble dangerously close to the edge. Clark unconsciously sighed in relief when it stopped just short of splattering on the rug. “I thought I told you to drop this.” He pointed an imposing,  ink-stained finger at Clark. “Seriously, your obsession with Batman is getting out of hand. You got a man-crush on him or something?”

Clark snorted. “Yeah right, not after what I’ve seen.”

Something in the way he said it made Perry’s eyes sharpen in suspicion. “Wait a minute… have you been snooping around Gotham, hoping to get mugged just so Batman can show up and give you a quote?”

Clark swallowed and tried to look as innocent as he could. “N-no?”

“ _Kent…_ ”

“Ok fine! Just a little.”

Perry’s roar made the windows rattle. “Dammit, Kent! What did I tell you about that?”

“Look Perry, it’s my job to report the news to the public, and the public deserves to know-”

“ _What were my exact words, Kent?_ ”

Clark sighed and recited, “’Dammit Kent, don’t even think about doing something so effing (censored automatically) stupid.‘”

“Because…?”

“Because we can’t-”

“-can’t afford the worker’s comp anymore,” Perry finished, glaring.

“I’m not going to get injured on the job, you _know_ how careful I am.”

“Oh yeah? Like Jimmy was careful? You remember what happened to Jimmy, covering that new penguin exhibit opening?”

“Poor Jimmy,” Clark conceded, nodding solemnly.

“Little beaky bastards got him. Poor kid never saw it coming.”

They shared a moment of silence for Poor Jimmy.

“ _An_ -ee-way,” said Perry, “I’m warning you. _Never_ do anything like that again. Stay out of Gotham. Stay out of Batman’s business. _No_ mention of Batman to Wayne.” He got up to pace a short circuit around his desk. “Corporate strategy, product lines, expansion. That’s all you talk about. Mention the Bat, you’ll freak him out. He’ll never speak to us again. You understand me?”

“Yessir.” Sulkily, Clark underlined _Corporate Strategy, Product Lines, Expansion_. Then, crossed out _Batman???_

Perry came over and clapped a hand on Clark’s shoulder. He stared down at Clark with gruff concern. The bluster was all gone now, replaced with something bordering on tenderness. “I mean it, Clark. Stay out of Gotham.”

Clark tried a weak chuckle. “Well, yeah, we can’t afford the-”

“Fuck the worker’s comp. Fuck the paper. It’s your life we’re talking about. Nothing’s worth that, especially not some caped vigilante. You got me?”

Clark looked down at the words in his notebook, unable to hold Perry’s gaze. He suddenly felt vaguely ashamed, chastised, as if he heard Dad’s ghost in Perry’s voice. _Son, all I ever wanted was for you to be safe…_

“Ok. I promise I’ll stay out of Gotham.”

Perry nodded, satisfied with his answer. “Good.” He walked back to his desk, scooping up some fallen newspaper clippings from the floor. Arranged them in a haphazard pile. Picked up his cup of coffee and drained the dregs, giving Clark a meaningful look over the rim. “Besides. You know better than most that we have plenty of monsters of our own in Metropolis.”

 

X

_Present Day_

 

There was a monster in the room with him. He was sure of it. He could it hear it laughing lowly from time to time, a wet, gurgling swallow of laughter, both human and beast, like something from a child’s nightmare. Except he wasn’t a child anymore, and he wasn’t in his bedroom in Smallville with the covers pulled to his chin and Mom and Dad snoring away on the other side of the wall.

His adult body _hurt_. They’d stripped him and left him on a cold, concrete floor. One hand chained to a pipe. A bloody cut on his left eyebrow that throbbed sharply, even through the haze of whatever they injected him with.

The manic female and her throaty-voiced companion that she gleefully called “Mr. J” had left him a while ago, dead-bolting the door shut as they went, but he knew he wasn’t alone in the darkness. He could hear a slither of dry, scaly skin. A thump of heavy feet, so similar to how a man walked, but with the rhythm slightly off, as if something fleshy was being dragged along. An occasional pop of jaw, a click of teeth. Were there eyes peering at him in the dark? Raking over his naked body? His most vulnerable, private parts? He curled his legs closer to his chest.

There was a blindfold tight over his eyes and a bag over that. For the past hour (hours?) he had been carefully regulating his breathing. Breathe too hard and he sucked the cloth of the bag into his mouth and nose. If he panicked, he faced the real fear of suffocating. 

He wasn’t panicking, yet. But there was something in the room with him. His world was utterly dark, and _there was something in the room with him_.

The door banged open. He instinctively twisted in the direction of the sound, even though he couldn’t see.

“And how’s my _favorite_ little reporter from Metropolis?”

It was _him_ , the one who laughed. Joker.

He felt a thin, cadaverous hand circle his ankle, pulling at his leg. He tried to kick it off, but his movements were sluggish, dumb. It felt like swimming in syrup.

A crack of laughter. A hand sliding up his calf and, to his horror, up the inside of his thigh, ghosting over that secret, sensitive place that he hadn’t even wanted Bruce to see when they made love for the first time.

“Don’t…” he attempted, but it came out as a moan.

“What was that? You’ll have to speak up. Here, let me help you.”

The hand left his thigh momentarily. Roughly, the bag and blindfold were yanked off.

After a moment of painful blindness, his eyes adjusted to see Joker looming above him. Purple suit stark against ghastly pale skin. Eyes that were almost all pupil, dark pools of madness. Twisted smile.

 _Stay out of Gotham_.

“There you are,” crooned the Joker. “Hellooooo, Handsome.”

Clark felt his insides turn to ice. His breath hitched. Panicky little gasps.

_Stay out of Gotham._

“I don’t think we’ve ever been properly introduced. Last time you visited Arkham, we weren’t yet acquainted. But I remembered you. Oh yes, I remembered you.”

He heard Bruce’s voice, tense with an undercurrent of real fear, _Stay away from Arkham. Promise me. I need to  hear you say it, Clark._  

The chain clinked against the pipe. Almost without noticing, he’d dragged himself as far away from Joker as he could.

The clown lowered a hand to him, smiling. “Hello, my name is Joker.”

“AKA Puddin’,” came a female voice from somewhere further down the room, followed by a gurgle of baby laughter. There was slither and a dull thump, a deep rumble. _It_ was still there too.

“Nice to meet you,” Joker sing-songed, waving his hand in front of Clark’s face. His smile was as red and jagged as a fresh wound.

Clark pulled against the chain, panting. Glared defiantly. Refused to take Joker’s hand.

“Well, that’s not very nice,” said Joker. He crossed the measly distance Clark had made with one stride, snatched up a handful of hair, and slapped his buzzer-taped palm over Clark’s cheek.

Pain exploded across his face. He thought he screamed, or was that just his mouth spasming in horror? He heard nothing over the crackling buzz of electricity, except maniacal laughter. The contact lasted for only a second, but it hurt for long after that, left him weak and trembling, whimpers spilling from his throat.

“You should’ve gone for the handshake. It only hurts more if you don’t obey me.”

A delight squeal. “I’ll hold your hand, Mr. J!”

“Not now, Harley!” A smack, followed by a shriek and a wail.

Hands on his shoulders, pulling him up as he wheezed and coughed. Manhandling him into a kneeling position. When his eyes refocused, he saw by the light of a naked dangling bulb that there was a camera on a tripod in the middle of the room.

“Now _smile,_ Mr. Kent. It’s time for your close-up.”

A woman in a red and black harlequin costume flounced into view, a comically sized cosmetic brush in hand. Darkening bruise on one cheek. “You need the makeup department, Mr. J?”

“No.” Joker’s voice was low and vicious as he yanked back Clark’s hair, exposing his throat. “I want _him_ to get a good, clear look at this pretty face. Before I wreck it.”

 

X

 

_Past_

 

“Lombard!” Perry dropped a stack of advertisements, reviews, and MapQuest directions onto the desk of the man in question. “Restaurant opening on 46th and Broad. Go.”

“Aye aye, Chief,” said Lombard, already shrugging on his coat.

“Don’t call me Chief. Three courses. Get a quote from the head chef.”

“Drinks?” he asked hopefully.

“ _One_ drink,” said Perry. “And don’t flirt with the waitresses.”

Clark, sitting in the adjacent cube, felt his stomach growl. “Can I go with him, Perry?” he asked, rolling his chair around the cubicle wall. 

“Yeah, let him come along, Chief. Once Kent bats those baby blues at the Maître D’, they’ll give us everything on the house.”

“No,” barked Perry. “Lombard, go. Kent, don’t you have a deadline?” He stomped back to his office. Clark wondered if the man ever tiptoed anywhere in his life.

“Hey Lois, wanna grab sandwiches?” he called across the aisle.

Lois, with phone jammed between shoulder and chin while _mmhmm_ -ing her way through a conversation, pointed at her watch and winked. Food purchased on the job after 8 o’clock was charged to the _Daily Planet_. She was counting down the minutes. Clark wondered if he should do the same, when his stomach growled again. Loudly.

“Whose puppy is that?” Jenny giggled from two seats down. “Someone feed the poor thing.” Which he took as his cue to make a run to the cafeteria.

He heard the rotors of a helicopter pass by as he ordered tuna salad on rye. The sound was nothing out of the ordinary, blending seamlessly into the early evening cacophony. Perry’s annoyed “Kent!” as he returned to the office, half a sandwich already crammed into his mouth, was nothing new either.

What was new was Perry’s incredulous look as he brandished a phone receiver at Clark. “There’s a chopper waiting for you on Helipad A. From Bruce Wayne.”

“Bwahh?” Clark said ineloquently.

“Good Lord, would you swallow already? You look like a chipmunk.”

He swallowed. “A chopper? For me?”

No one sent a chopper for the Clark Kents of the world. Perry rarely even approved him calling for a car. Even Lois didn’t get choppers. High profile reporters for the Metropolis News Network with perfectly coiffed hair and glossy makeup got choppers. Bruce Wayne got choppers. Clark Kent rode a rickety bicycle, purchased secondhand from a pizza delivery guy who’d moved on to better things.

Bruce Wayne flying him in was… unexpected? Flattering? Totally awesome?

He gathered his notes in a daze, _CorporateStrategyProductLinesExpansion_ and   _NoBatmanNoBatmanNoBatman_ running through his head like an earworm. Flung his coat on. Popped a tic tac. (Tuna salad hadn’t been the best idea.) Lois, still on the phone, gave him a grin and thumbs up as he left.

He had a momentary wave of vertigo as he stepped in, a memory of heat and sun and stinging sand, a reminder that he hadn’t been in a copter since Kabul. “Corporate Strategy, Product Lines, Expansion,” he repeated to himself on the ride over, like a prayer for safety.

The roof of the Hotel Grand Lux had a golf course, a pool, and propane heaters disguised as tiki torches. A row of wooden beach chairs were positioned to take in the Metropolis night view.

Bruce Wayne waited for him in front of the rooftop entrance to his penthouse suite, smiling lazily with one hand in his pocket. He wore his shirt untucked, no jacket. Clark, bundled messily into his raincoat, shivered and wondered that the man wasn’t cold.

“Mr. Wayne,” he greeted over the noise of the helicopter taking off again. He had the suddenly unsettling feeling that he was being stranded in an unfamiliar spot. Like Mom had taken five-year-old him shopping and deserted him in the cosmetics aisle. 

“Please, call me Bruce.” He took Clark’s proffered hand in both of his own, cupping it in a little cocoon of warmth. “May I call you Clark?”

“S-sure.”

“You look cold. Come in, come in.”

“Thank you.”

“Whoa, hold on,” Bruce said, smiling, just as Clark was about to walk right into the set of sliding glass doors. In the early winter evening with the interior lit up, the glass barrier was almost invisible. “Be careful.” The door was opened for him. He was guided in by a hand on the small of his back.

_CorporateStrategyProductLinesExpansion._

“You have a really nice… place,” said Clark, blinking to adjust to his surroundings. The so-called hotel suite was more like an apartment. Separate rooms. A kitchen with actual stovetops. Lush, cushy couches that looked more comfortable than Clark’s own bed. Yet despite the gloss and gleam, it looked less lived-in than any apartment he’d ever seen. It felt fake, like a carefully crafted showroom in a luxury furniture shop. Lonely, somehow.

“Let me take your coat,” said Bruce, breathing nearly down the back of Clark’s neck and making him startle slightly. He reached around Clark’s waist in a strange sort of hug, undid the sash and two buttons of his coat, and slid it easily off his shoulders. Tossed it on a nearby sofa.

“Uh, thanks.”

That was awfully… handsy. Nice, but weird.

“Drink?” said Bruce, directing him smoothly over to the bar.

“Oh, I don’t drink much,” Clark confessed, dropping onto a bar stool. The shiny red leather creaked under him, like it was brand new. 

“Just a beer, then?” Bruce produced two cold bottles of Budweiser, which immediately began sweating in the generously heated room. Cracked them open smoothly, plunked one down in front of Clark. Took a neat swallow of the other one.

“Um, thanks so much.”

 _Always eat what’s put in front of you, it’s good manners,_ Mom always said. _Unless you see them put something in it, like meth or ecstasy or whatever they do. Then you dump it and run like hell._ He might have been confusing two different conversations, one delivered when he was a kid stubbornly refusing to eat his peas, the other delivered on the train platform when he was leaving for Metropolis the first time and apparently needed to be warned about the evils of late-night clubbing.

Clark took a drink of beer. It was good and cold, and he found himself sighing pleasurably over the mouth of the bottle.

Bruce’s smile seemed to widen at that, and he went and took the seat facing Clark, sitting close so that their knees almost touched.

“Did you eat yet? I can call room service.”

“Oh, that’s ok. I grabbed a sandwich before I got here. Thanks for sending the transport, by the way. I wasn’t… expecting it.”

Bruce was looking at him through half-lidded eyes. He took another swallow of beer and took the tip of Clark’s tie between his fingers. “This looks nice on you,” he said lowly. “Better than what you were wearing the other night. Brings out your eyes.”

Clark laughed. Bit his lip in embarrassment. “That’s funny. I actually spilled coffee on it this morning.”

Bruce chucked him on the chin. Except he did it weird, like the other night, sweeping his thumb slowly over the skin of his jaw, almost like a caress. “You have a nice smile too,” Bruce whispered. “Anyone ever tell you that?”

“My mom says so,” he said, flushing a little. “Ahem. So…” He pulled back a little. Took his notebook from his jacket pocket. Clicked his pen on.   

Bruce pulled back too, raising his hands in mock defense. “Whoa. Straight to business, huh?”

“If you don’t mind, Mr. Wayne.”

“Bruce.”

“… Bruce.”

Clark squinted down at his notes. Now that his eyes had adjusted to the light, it was actually pretty dim inside. In fact, most of the light seemed to be coming from candles. There were two stubby ones in a glass bowl on the countertop near his elbow. Two tall ones in decorative candlesticks on the coffee table. More strewn around. Only the brass chandelier in the living area was lit, cranked down real low.

It was good to be environmental, Clark thought.  Bruce Wayne must be in support of power conservation. Going green.

_Corporate Strategy. Product Lines. Expansion. ~~Batman???~~_

He cleared his throat. “Wayne Enterprises has always had a culture of innovation. You’ve branched out tremendously over the years, especially in the tech sector. Can you describe the overall corporate strategy and how it-”

Bruce laid a hand over his, covering hand, pen, and paper altogether, smooshing them under a heavy palm.

“Look,” said Bruce. He was leaning really close, as if he wanted to whisper into Clark’s ear. Or his mouth, even. “I think we both know why you’re here, and it’s not to discuss…” he waved his other hand in the air dismissively, “… corporate strategy or whatever crap you can simply pull off the company website. I think we’d both enjoy it if we, hm, skipped to the good part, yeah?”

Clark felt his stomach do an excited flip. It was the moment he’d been waiting for, though he didn’t think it would be this easy. “Thank you for being frank with me, Bruce,” he whispered back. “I absolutely agree.”

He hopped off the stool and went to grab the beige folder from his bag, the one that contained all his notes about Batman. He brought it back to Bruce, who looked wide-eyed and slightly off balance, like he’d gotten whiplash or something.

Clark pulled a black and white print of a crime scene photo, slid it across the counter. Bruce looked dumbly down at it, muttering something that sounded like “mood-killer.” Then, his expression suddenly hardened. “Where did you get this?” he asked.

“I’d rather not reveal my sources.” Clark tapped the grainy yet graphic photo with his pen. “That’s Red Mahaffey. Gotham City resident, involved heavily in mob activities. He was found bleeding in an alley last week with four molars removed and a chunk of flesh cut from his tongue. After intensive surgery he’s able to speak again, but he won’t say a word about who did this to him. Not to the police, not to anyone.”

Clark slid another photo print over. “This bat-shaped projectile was found near Mahaffey. And the pattern of the attack matches several others found around Eastside Gotham. Batman.”

Clark paused, to see if Bruce would jump in with a comment, but the other man’s face was like stone. He could see Bruce’s jaw clench. “His name is synonymous with fear in the dockside districts. This bat vigilante has been acting like a one-man wave of terror, and his victims-”

Bruce suddenly barked out a harsh, humorless laugh. He shoved both photos off the table in an abrupt, angry gesture. “You know,” he said lowly, “for someone who does sports and entertainment and only occasionally dabbles in finance, you have a really _dirty_ mind.”

Clark leaned forward, putting on his no-nonsense _tell me the truth_ journalist’s face. “I’m not afraid to get dirty, Mr. Wayne. In fact, I’m as dirty as they come. You think I’m a good boy? I can get downright _filthy._ ”

Bruce blinked. His brows knit in confusion for a moment, before amusement crept back into his expression. “Oh yeah?” he challenged, a smile going up one corner of his mouth.

Clark held his gaze. He hadn’t backed down when that one crooked pharmacist, faced with exposure, had threatened him with bodily harm and he wasn’t about to back down now.

“ _Filthy_ ,” Clark reiterated.

Then looked down in surprise.

Bruce Wayne’s hand was on his leg. Weird.

“How about you show me just how filthy you can be?” Bruce whispered. 

By the time Bruce made it past his leg and popped his belt buckle, it stopped being weird and became really, _stupidly_ obvious.

 _Good Lord, he’s hitting on me_.

“Good Lord, you’re hitting on me!”

Clark nearly toppled the bar stool, springing up like he’d been stung.

“Wha… I…” Bruce stammered. He had that whiplash look on his face again.

“Wait a minute,” said Clark, feeling the slow trickle of realization. He looked around wildly, as if just realizing where he was. “You didn’t ask me here to talk about Gotham City at all. You asked me here to s-seduce me!” he stuttered with anger, hot-faced and humiliated and so, _so_ stupid. He was back in ninth grade again, skinny, awkward Clark Kent, who was never in on the joke, who always, _always_ caught on too late. _Get out, you weirdo!_ Missy Davis had screamed him out of the house, when he’d shown up to her sultry invitation to “sleep over” with a sleeping bag, comic books, and board games.

“You thought I was some easy, brainless… that you could just bring me here and ... just… all this…” he waved at the hotel suite with the carefully cracked bedroom door, the dim lights and drinks, the _stupid environmentally friendly candles_. “I bet you don’t even recycle!” he blurted.

“ _What?_ ” Bruce spluttered, with an incredulous laugh.

“Never mind!”

He took a deep breath. Gathered himself. Pointed a finger at Bruce’s slack-jawed face. “I don’t know what kind of folks you run with, Mr. Wayne, but where I come from, we _respect_ people.”

Bruce had slid off his own stool, approaching Clark with hands held up, palms out. “Now wait just a minute, I think we need to calm down-”

“You may not respect me,” Clark forged ahead. “But you should respect my profession. The press is not a _joke_ , Mr. Wayne. It’s _important_. It has _integrity_. People have the right to know what’s going on in this world. I came here because I believed you thought the same thing, but I was wrong. This interview is over.”

He snatched up his bag, grabbed his coat.

“Hey, hold on a second!”

He whirled around in righteous fury and stormed outside…

“Wait, don’t!”

… and ran head-first into the glass sliding doors.

“Oof!”

He flat onto his back, literally seeing stars. “Oooow…”

 _That glass is really, really clean_ , he thought dazedly as he stared up at the ceiling.

“Holy shit, are you ok?”

“Nghh…”

“Thaaat’s a lot of blood. Don’t move.”

Footsteps faded. Rustling in the distance. Footsteps returned. A creak as Bruce knelt right behind his head.

He felt surprisingly strong and gentle arms lift him by the shoulders, a hand cupping the back of his head for support, settling him down onto a silk trouser-clad lap. He heard the plastic pop of a first aid kit. The crunch of an ice pack.

“OW!” he protested, when ice touched his bleeding nose. “Stahppit!”

Bruce’s face hovered over him, upside down. His expression was hard to read upside down, but Clark thought he might’ve been smiling, and that he looked oddly sad.

“It’ll stop the bleeding,” Bruce said softly. “Shhh.”

Utterly deflated, with all his moral anger knocked out of him in one blow, Clark could only nod. His eyes fluttered closed as Bruce removed his glasses. He felt gauze being pressed to his streaming nostrils, held firmly but gently until the bleeding stopped. The icepack was removed, the meltwater blotted carefully away. Gentle hands applied ointment to the a cut on the bridge of his nose, where the nose pads of his glasses had scratched skin.

Clark floated for a few minutes, oddly comforted by the ministrations, until he remembered how he got there.

“Did I break the door?” he asked sluggishly. “I think I broke the door.”

A warm chuckle. “No. Good news is, you didn’t break anything else either. You’ll be fine.”

He felt his glasses being gently slid back on. He blinked up at Bruce Wayne’s concerned face. He looked different. Less smug. Less sure of himself. Vulnerable, somehow. At this angle, Clark could see the slightest hint of wrinkles branching out from the corner of his hazel eyes. A scratch of dark stubble on his chin. A tiny pink scar under one eye. Imperfections.

“I think I bled on your pants,” Clark whispered.

Bruce shrugged. “Thanks, I always hated this pair.”

Which startled a laugh from Clark, that quickly turned into a wheeze of pain. “Ow…”

“Shh. Stay still.”

They stayed like that for a long moment, Clark’s head pillowed on Bruce’s lap. Somehow, someway, it wasn’t all that awkward.

“I shouldn’t even be here,” Clark mused absently. “I wanted to go to that restaurant. It was supposed to be my assignment. They had a peanut butter dessert thingy on the menu that I was really looking forward to.”

A soft chuff from Bruce that could’ve been a laugh. “What was the name of the place?”

“I forgot.”

“You forgot the name of the restaurant that you were assigned to review?”

“Hey, you wanna smack your face into the wall and see how many digits of pi you can remember? It was on 46th and Broad.”

“Ok, ok. Don’t get worked up.”

He felt fingers running through his hair. It was soothing.

“You know,” said Bruce, after awhile. “Clark Kent, you really aren’t what you seem. There’s way more to you that I thought.”

His upside down face was hovering dangerously close. A certain scene from a certain Spiderman movie popped into Clark’s head.

“Don’t kiss me,” Clark warned.

“Uh, I wasn’t going to.”

“Oh.”

The full embarrassment of the situation started descending on him again, like the sensation of blood slowly returning to numbed limbs. His face colored as he imagined the headline: _Cub Reporter Lured by Promise of Juicy Scoop, Knocks Himself Out Instead, Bleeds On CEO’s Pants._ Extra, extra, read all about it.

He pushed himself up abruptly, ignoring the brief dizzy spell. Gathered his things for the second time.

“I’m going. I think I’ve had enough humiliation for the day.”

“Hey, wait a minute. Are you sure you’re ok?”

“Positive.”

He headed for the actual exit this time, a private elevator that ran from the penthouse suite straight down to the hotel lobby.

“At least let me call you a cab,” Bruce called after him.

“Good _night_ , Mr. Wayne.”

He made it out of the building and down the block before he realized that his bicycle was still back at the _Planet_. He sighed and walked another three blocks, before he decided that he was too tired and cold and his nose _hurt_ too much to walk all the way back. Giving in, he dialed Perry’s office.

“Can I call a car?” he mumbled into his cell.

“What’s the matter, Kent? Your chopper turned back into a pumpkin?”

“Perry…” He trailed off, suddenly exhausted. He felt like a deflated balloon, so puffed up and proud one second, until someone stuck him with a needle and let all the air out in one vicious bang. He groaned and slumped against the nearest vertical surface, sliding down to the ground. His chin dipped to his chest. “I… really messed up today.”

There was a moment of silence on the line. He was afraid Perry had hung up on him, until his boss spoke up again. “Listen to me, kid. You might have messed up and messed up good, but there isn’t _anything_ that’s unfixable in the morning. You’ll be fine. You’ll come in tomorrow, tell me all about it, and I’ll chew you out, then help you fix it. Business as usual. You’ll be _fine_. Got it?”

“Yeah.”

“Good. Tell me where you are, I’ll call the car.”

Five minutes later, the car came screeching down the corner, spraying him with leftover snow.

“Christ, what happened to you, Smallville?” the driver crowed when she got a look at his face as he clambered in. “Did Bruce Wayne punch you?”

Clark sighed as he buckled up, leaning against the cool glass of the window as they took off. “Would you believe that I headbutted him?”

“Did he insult your mother?”

“No.”

“Then, no.”

“What if I was drunk?”

She cackled with laughter. “On what, strawberry Yoo-hoo?”

When he finally got back to his apartment that night, he opened the fridge and reached past a shelf of strawberry Yoo-hoo for the case of beer in the back. Just on principle.

 

X

_Present Day_

 

Bruce dreamed that he held Clark in his arms, except he wasn’t Bruce, but Batman, and his arms were dangerous. It was raining the first night they met. He held Clark against the wall while Vinny bled and groaned on the ground next to them.

 _Why were you beating this man?_ said Clark, wet and warm against him. _Why? What did he do to deserve that?_

And then it wasn’t Vinny who was bleeding, but Clark. Blood streaming from his nose and mouth. Eyes sad and pleading. _What did I do to deserve this?_

Bruce wanted to recoil in horror, but Batman held on tightly, refusing to let go.

 _What did I do to deserve this?_ he whispered in Bruce’s ear, like he was sharing a terribly important secret. _Is it because I have mob connections?_

“No, Clark!”

 Bruce jerked awake, panting, pain shooting through his body.

A hospital room. Thin hospital mattress beneath him. An IV in his right arm. Sickly green walls. TV mounted in the corner.

He sat up, despite the protests of his body. Pain meant nothing. If he wasn’t dead, he could stand.

A clink at his right hand. He pulled, saw that it was handcuffed to the side of the bed.

“What the hell?”

Two uniformed policemen strode in. Shiny badges. Guns at the hip. “Mr. Wayne…”

He wasn’t listening, his attention fixated instead on the TV. There was no audio, but he could read the headline scrolling across the bottom of the screen as the dolled-up anchorwoman spoke meaningless words.

JOKER RELEASES ANOTHER DISTURBING VIDEO IN RECENT KIDNAPPING CASE

In the corner of the screen was a dark image of Clark, naked and on his knees, eyes unfocused. Joker held him up by the hair in one hand, the gleam of a straight razor in the other hand.

Metal screeched and bent as he pulled the handcuffs against the metal post. His fists were clenched, veins popping starkly from his arms like blue embroidery.

“Mr. Wayne!”

The two cops had backed up, hands hovering at their holsters, wary.

“What the _fuck_ is going on?” Bruce demanded, stalling with his anger while his eyes scanned the two badges, memorizing ID numbers and last names.

The taller one cleared his throat. “Bruce Wayne, you’re being detained on suspicion of involvement in Clark Kent’s kidnapping.”  

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading!! 
> 
> (I also noticed a mistake just as I finished: if a person is heading *outside* from the *inside* of a glass door, then the reflection from the interior lights should've clued them in that there was a barrier. My bad!! Of course, if poor Clark is anything like me, he'd still find a way to bop himself no matter what!)


	4. Don't Apologize

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clark and Bruce meet again, have lunch. It's not as awkward as the first time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No copyright infringement intended, no profits made!

_Past_

 

The kitten yowled and took a swipe at him with tiny needle claws.

“It’s ok, little guy, I’m just trying to help,” Clark implored. The tree branch he was perched on creaked ominously. He gulped and tried not to look down. Wondered if this, going terribly wrong, would inspire Perry’s new worker’s comp rant for scaring the next generation of cub reporters. Kent and the Kittens. _You wouldn’t want to end up like poor Kent and the Kittens!_ He hoped not. Despite the alliterative appeal, it sounded way lamer than Olsen and the Penguins.

The gray ball of fluff glared at him from the restaurant’s rooftop gutter. The smell of old grease and soap wafted up to them, making Clark’s stomach churn.

“C’mon Jim,” he pleaded. Stretched out his hand as far as it would go. The other two kittens of the abandoned litter were already in his battered messenger bag. He could feel them wriggling around from where it was cradled against his stomach.

Only the one he’d dubbed Jim was still being stubborn, scooting out of his reach and refusing to budge, no matter how many kissy noises Clark made at him. The poor thing was shivering in the mid-January wind. 

“I know you want Mommy,” said Clark. “But it’s cold out here and I just wanna get you somewhere safe and warm…”

“Dude!” someone hooted. “It’s a _cat_. It don’t speak _English_.” _You dumbass,_ was implied.

He’d gathered a small crowd of lunchtime pedestrians. Some cheered him on, some heckled, some just pointed and laughed. Most of them had their phones set on video. _Watch now on YouTube: Dumbass tries to do fireman’s job, gets concussion. Very funny!_

“You have to _meow_ at it!” shrieked a little girl, pulling agitatedly on her mother’s hand. “It only understands if you _meow!_ ” There were snickered agreements from the crowd.

Clark looked at Jim. The kitten made a noise like a squeaky door hinge and looked back at him.

“Mew,” Clark said reluctantly, his face hot. Whether it was because the language barrier had just been broken, or the kitten was attracted to the heat radiating from Clark’s hand, it padded over a few inches closer, sniffing.

Clark lurched forward and scooped Jim up, just in time to hear a _CRACK_ from the tree branch, which finally gave up supporting the weight of a 6-foot-tall man.

“Whoa!”

Instinctively curling himself around the babies, Clark plummeted like a rock. The memory of himself falling out an apple tree back on the farm flashed before his eyes, flailing limbs, the nauseating swoop in his stomach, the breathless impact of the ground. He braced himself for the pain…

And fell into a pair of strong arms and a solid body.

“Oof!”

Clark and whoever-it-was tumbled to the ground in a swirl of coats, him mostly cushioned by the body beneath him while a hand cradled the back of his head, keeping him from injury as they slid across the ice-patched ground.

“Ahhh…”

He panted for a moment, dizzy. A complaining _reeeeow_ came from under his chin, where Jim was tucked securely in the folds of his scarf. The scurrying and yowls coming from his bag told him Leonard and Spock were ok too.

Strong hands gently pushed him into a sitting position. An arm around his back. Warm breath on the side of his neck.

“Are you ok?” asked Bruce Wayne.

Clark froze for a moment, holding Jim like a scared kid cuddling a teddy bear, before scrambling to his feet.

“Mr. Wayne!”

People were milling about him, asking if he was ok, offering helping hands (to Bruce, not to him). He barely heard them.

The CEO of Wayne Enterprises smiled and rose slowly and gracefully to his feet without breaking eye contact. Unruffled. Suave. “Call me Bruce. I think catching you from a tree deserves first-name basis, don’t you, Clark?”

Clark gulped. His stomach swooped again, like he was still falling and hadn’t properly landed.

“You should file harassment charges,” Lois had told him over late-night coffees at the local diner.

“I’m not doing that, Lo. It wasn’t… like that.”

She’d given him a scrutinizing look over the rim of her cup. “You _should_.”

Black coffee for a late night. Deadlines at dawn. Laptops open, chicken fingers, and pie á la mode with ice cream melting into the crust.

“He wasn’t… _that_ indecent. Not afterwards, anyway.”

She’d looked at him with something between concern and reproach in her eyes. Bit her lip and touched his wrist with the tips of her fingers before saying almost apologetically, “Listen, I’m not saying any of it was your fault, but did you _really_ not see it coming until he almost had your pants off?”

He’d groaned at that, hiding his face in his arms. “What’s wrong with me, Lois?” he said, voice muffled by his sleeve.

He heard her sigh resignedly, felt her fingers in his hair. “Nothing at all,” she said softly. “Absolutely nothing at all. Don’t apologize for who you are.”

As for Perry, Clark had absolutely refused to say anything beyond that the interview was terminated due to a conflict of interest. And that there wasn’t likely to be anymore interviews with Bruce Wayne in the future. To his gratitude, Perry had simply responded with a sullen glare and flicked a Post-It with an address in his direction. “Kittens on a roof. Go.”

Which led to him waiting with a camera and notepad in the freezing cold for two hours, with the firemen failing to show and the kittens mewling overhead like the poor babies they were. Which then led him to shimmy up a nearby tree for a good old-fashioned search and rescue, _hooah_. Which _then_ led to him successfully rescuing the kittens, but in an ironic and humiliating twist, then needing to be rescued out of a tree himself. By Bruce bleeping Wayne.

“Thanks for the help,” he mumbled, refusing to look at Bruce’s smirking face. Not sure exactly what to feel. Irritation? Gratitude? Fear? Embarrassment? Mostly embarrassment.

Clark turned his back on Bruce to carefully lift out Leonard and Spock and deposit them, squirming, into a cardboard box someone was offering. Jim, however, was refusing to be moved. He clung to Clark’s scarf with his claws, twisting and mewling plaintively at any attempts to get him off, making Clark do a silly little squirmy dance like his neck was being tickled.

“Come _on,_ little guy..” The kitten whacked him in the face with its tail and dug its claws in deeper. Threads were pulling out of his scarf. Phone cameras flashed eagerly in his face, capturing every last embarrassing second. “Ok, fine, keep it!” Clark huffed, pulling off his scarf and bundling the whole wriggling mess into the cardboard box. He settled the cloth around the three of them like a blanket. One of them yawned and fell asleep.

“Hey buddy,” said a policeman, tapping Clark’s shoulder. “That’s a city tree you damaged.” A violation ticket was slapped to his chest. “Now get a shot of me with the kitties, wouldja? My kids’ll love it.”

Clark gritted his teeth and snapped a few pictures of the grinning cop with the box, then the crowd that had gathered around. Took down the name of the shelter they’d be sent to. Got a few high-pitched quotes from a group of latte-toting girls. Turned to leave, then stopped at the sound of soft laughter.

Bruce was still there. “Is this your day job, rescuing cats out of trees?”

“Excuse me,” Clark mumbled, sidestepping. “I have to get back to the office.”

“Hold on a minute, I wanted to talk to you.”

Clark bristled at the sound of footsteps following him. “Are you stalking me?” he demanded, whirling around.

“No, of course not.”

“Then what are you even doing here? Last I checked, you lived in _Gotham_.”

Bruce pointed. “Wayne Enterprises has a Metropolis branch in that building behind you. I come here fairly often, actually.”

“…Oh. Right, sorry.”

Red-faced, Clark turned to leave again.

“Repartee!” Bruce called after him.

Clark slowed but didn’t stop. “ _What_?”

“Repartee,” Bruce repeated, falling into stride beside him. “It’s the name of the restaurant on 46th and Broad. And the ‘peanut butter dessert thingy’ is called a Butterscotch Peanut-Butter Parfait. Let me take you to lunch.”

Clark laughed shortly. “I don’t think that’s a good idea, Mr. Wayne.” 

“Wow. I usually don’t get turned down this fast. Sure you don’t want to think about it first?”

 _You flatter yourself_ , thought Clark.

“You flatter me,” said Clark. He stopped abruptly, making Bruce stop short as well. “But I’m not interested in… whatever you’re offering.”

“Clark, please.” He stepped closer, but still maintained a respectful distance with his hands tucked carefully in his pockets. The smug flirtation had gone, like a light switch being turned off. “What I’m offering is an apology. I’m sorry.”

“Oh. I see.”

“I made a lot of assumptions about you the other night. Ones I shouldn’t have made about anyone, much less acted on. I was wildly inappropriate. You were right, I disrespected you. And I can’t tell you how sorry I am about you getting hurt.”

Clark looked down and sighed. He could still feel his nose throbbing. “Well, that one was my own fault. And,” he winced slightly, “you shouldn’t be the only one apologizing. I’m sorry too. I’ve been told that I can… give off mixed signals.”

“Don’t,” said Bruce.. “Don’t apologize. None of it was your fault.”

Clark looked back up, almost shyly. There was no mockery in Bruce’s eyes. No chocolatey-smooth charm, used to disguise true intentions. He really meant it. “Ok,” he said awkwardly, nodding. “I, uh, I accept your apology.”

Bruce smiled, a small genuine smile. “Let me make it up to you? Come to lunch with me. All evidence to the contrary, I really would like to get to know you better.”

Clark raised an eyebrow.

“It’s just lunch, I promise,” said Bruce. He held his hands up in the “I surrender” gesture.

Clark bit his lip. Part of him, the simple, stubborn, Kansas-bred part of him, wanted to run the other way, into oncoming traffic even, rather than get mixed up in the drama that was Bruce Wayne. Another part of him, the information-greedy, voyeuristic part that made him the journalist that he was, the part of his personality that got him involved in all sorts of messy situations just to _see what would happen_ , wanted to go and get a good story. And then there was the secret, lonely part of him, the confusing fragment of Clark Kent that was simultaneously afraid of Bruce’s casual touches and easy immoral pleasure, and yet somehow still _yearned…_ for what?

A sudden idea flashed in his head, like a cartoon lightbulb. He could almost hear the _ding_ sound effect. It was a solution, of sorts. A compromise that would please the desires of all his warring parts. “Three questions,” he said, smirking. “Answer me three questions truthfully, on record, anything I ask, and I’ll think about it.”

Bruce looked back at him, slightly slack-jawed. Saying nothing.

“I didn’t think so.”

He turned to go. With a flourish.

“Wait a minute, let me have your number-”

_Riiiip_

His tattered messenger bag broke at the seam near the strap, spilling the contents onto the sidewalk. Clark whirled around to see Bruce holding the other end of the shoulder strap in his hand, looking guilty.

“Aw, come _on_!”

Clark scrambled for his notes before the wind made off with them, blushing like a beet for what probably was the millionth time today.

Fumbling on the ground, it was a moment before he realized that Bruce was kneeling next to him, helping him with his things. Manicured hands gathered up a  bunch of pens, a drugstore notepad already three quarters full, and a Garfield-shaped memory stick. He felt vaguely like an unpopular high school girl who’d dropped her books, only to look up to see the hottest jock on the football team helping her. Except it was the jock that made her drop her books in the first place. Stupid jock.

“So… three questions?” Bruce said tentatively, helping Clark tie the shoulder strap around the bag to hold it together.

“Five,” Clark snapped. He considered it upping it to eight, plus a recorded video, but decided to stick with the five. He was really very generous. (Though to be fair, his bag had been on its last legs, a good sneeze might have ripped a hole in it.)

Bruce nodded solemnly for a moment. “I’ll think about it,” he said, and offered Clark a hand up.

 

X

 

There was a new bag on his desk the next morning. It came in a brown paper package, which he ripped open eagerly at first, thinking it was Mom’s cookies and desperately needing the pick-me-up after the past few days.

Instead, he got a Wayne business card and a gorgeous black leather brief. The leather was velvety smooth to the touch, like butter, with a rich sheen that almost looked like it glowed with its own light. It held his boulder of a laptop perfectly with room to spare, and still managed to look sleek and slim. A beautiful 20-something-year-old model on the cover of _VMAN_ magazine, with plucked eyebrows and that sultry scowl all 20-something models seemed to wear, should be wearing that bag, along with a matching three-piece suit.

Clark looked down at his own flannel shirt and coffee-stained tie with something like horror.

“Is that a new bag?” said Lois, stopping by and eyeing the discarded paper packaging on his desk.

“Uhm…”

“Ooh, is that a _Lambertson_?” cooed Jenny, coming over too. “Didn’t think that was your style. Or price range.”

“It’s _not_ ,” said Lois, half suspicious and half amused.

“You got a sugar mama, Smallville?” Lombard chimed in from the adjacent cube.

“More like sugar daddy,” Clark muttered unthinkingly. Snapped his mouth shut.

There was an awful moment of silence.

“What?” said Lois.

“What?” he responded, cringing.

Lombard’s mouth was in tight O-shape, a clear sign he was about to start one of those ear-splitting startled guffaws, _haw haw haw_ , that would attract the attention of everyone this side of the break room. Jenny was grinning manically, looking like she was about to leap at him. Lois had that crazy gleam in her eye, the one she’d get just before slamming someone with a hard-hitting interview question. _Sir, have you or have you not been embezzling company funds?_

“I have to go to the bathroom!” Clark announced loudly, springing to his feet. He slung his duct-taped messenger bag over his shoulder, grabbed the Lambertson like it was a bomb he needed to get out of the building, and ran for it.

He fumbled his bike lock twice before getting it open, hopped on, and was pedaling his way to Wayne Enterprises before he had a clear idea what he was actually doing.

WAYNE FINANCIAL blazed across the top of the building, like someone was shouting it from the rooftops through a megaphone. Clark knew from the building directory that there were actually many companies occupying the 50-floor tower block, but only WAYNE FINANCIAL got the letters to prove it, the rest of them squeezed onto a push-pin bulletin board that had letters falling off: FLEMING-UMBERTO-BERNARD (Attorneys at Law) became an oddly spaced FLUBBER.

 _Stupid jock,_ Clark thought sulkily, as he parked his bike and pushed his way through the revolving doors. _Stupid gift-giving jock._

“I can’t let you up without an appointment, son,” said the bored security guard at the front desk, while another one poked and prodded Clark with a metal detector wand.

“But what about him?” Clark protested, pointing at a teenager who waltzed right in from the street and headed towards the elevators, whistling a tune.

“That’s Joe from pizza delivery, son. Pizza delivery don’t need appointments, son. You delivering lunch, son?”

Clark seriously considered the saran-wrapped peanut butter and baloney sandwich he had in his bag. _I’m Clark from the sandwich shop ‘round the corner. I’ve got Mr. Wayne’s PB and baloney on white, crusts trimmed off, just the way he likes it._ (He’d run out of jelly and you can’t have peanut butter in a sandwich by itself, that’s just _weird._ )

“I’ve got a Carl Kent here, wants to speak with the big boss,” Mr. Bored Security Guard spoke into the telephone receiver, clearly not expecting an answer. After a minute, his eyes widened fractionally and he gave Clark a weird sort of up-and-down look. He hung up with a click and waved him towards the elevators. “50th floor, son.”

“Oh, thanks,” Clark said, surprised.

He had a whole speech prepared about conflict of interest, company ethics, and _Daily Planet’s_ gift-giving policies by the time he’d hit floor 30. 30 through 50, he spent getting peeved-off, then nervous, then peeved-off again.

Except Bruce Wayne wasn’t there to receive his ire when he stepped out of the elevators into a ridiculously beautiful oak-paneled office.

“Mr. Wayne is in a meeting,” said the mascara-and-lipstick secretary in a breathy sort of voice straight out of a 1960’s television show. “Would you like to leave a message?”

“Do you have any idea when he’ll be out?”

“No, I’m afraid not. Would you like to leave a message?”

“Can I maybe wait for him…?”

“Would you prefer to make an appointment for another day, or leave a message?”

She smiled.

An air freshener on the wall sprayed a jet of concentrated lemon scent into Clark’s face.

“Yes, I’d like to leave a message for _Mr. Wayne_ ,” said Clark through his teeth. He dropped the expensive leather bag onto her desk, his professionally-prepared speech flying out the window. “Tell him I have to _work_ , actually _work_. I can’t carry a _Lamborghini_ or whatever the heck this is. I was at a housing project just last week where there were rats the size of Chihuahuas running around. Did you know they like to jump on people? I didn’t. I was at a dumpster three days ago, on my knees, testing for toxic waste. I coach baseball every other Sunday and do you know what kids do? _Spill_ stuff. I dog-sit sometimes, and this dog? He chews on _everything,_ he pees _everywhere_. …”

“Ahem.”

Clark froze, then turned around to see Bruce and a half-dozen immaculately-suited men staring at him, the boardroom door behind them just swinging shut. _Holy moly,_ was that the city comptroller with him? And the owner of the Metropolis Monarchs?

 _Pees everywhere… pees everywhere… everywhere_ echoed off the oak paneling.

Clark gulped. “I… uh…”

A slow smile started creeping one side of Bruce’s mouth. “Gentleman,” he drawled, “Allow me to introduce my good friend, Clark Kent from the _Daily Planet_.”

He walked over and clapped a hand on Clark’s shoulder, keeping it there while Clark endured having to shake hands with the lot of them, “Clark-kent-daily-planet, nice to meet you, Clark-kent-daily-planet, how do you do, Clark-kent-daily-planet, I’m fine, and you?”

“Nice cologne,” one of them sneered at him in passing.

“It’s new,” he mumbled back, looking down at his scuffed loafers. He felt Bruce guiding him down the hall and presently found himself in a huge office overlooking the bay. The door clicked shut behind him like a gunshot.

He looked around  nervously. The room would dwarf Perry’s office. He shuffled his feet on the W-monogrammed carpet.

“Sit,” Bruce said pleasantly. Clark sat. “Drink?”

 Clark shook his head.

“No? Ok, then.”

Clark exhaled slowly. His ears and nose were throbbing hot, like that one time he’d tried scotch and was really sick afterwards. He felt deflated again. “Bruce, I’m sorry, that was really unprofessional of me…”

“Don’t apologize,” said Bruce. He sat down, elegantly folding himself into the wingback chair. They stared wordlessly at each other across the expanse of the monstrous oak desk. That smile was creeping up Bruce’s face again, a highly amused runaway smile.

“I can’t accept this,” Clark said finally. He held up the bag.

“I know,” said Bruce.

He reached into one of the many engraved desk drawers and pulled out an exact duplicate of Clark’s olive green canvas messenger that he’d gotten from Bags4Less. Except this one was newly bought. The tags were still there.

“Wha…?”

Bruce reached over and plucked the Lambertson from Clark’s hands, tossing it aside like it wasn’t worth thousands of dollars. Took Clark’s duct-taped messenger off his lap and laid it next to the new one. Efficiently began transferring the contents of one to the other.

“Did you pull some sort of Honest Woodsman test on me?” Clark spluttered. “Because that is _unbelievably_ creepy.”

Bruce gave him a look. “And pedaling halfway across town just to tell me off is, what, normal?”

“I was… I…”

“And no, it wasn’t a test. I sent you a bag this morning because I thought you needed one as soon as possible and didn’t want to wait until I’d figured out the exact brand of your old one. Once I did find out, or my personal assistant did, I had it delivered from the store. I was going to tell you to keep both of them, but I had a feeling you wouldn’t.”

“I. See.”

“I was going to get you a new scarf too, but I couldn’t find that particular pattern in any catalogue.”

“No, it’s… pretty unique.”

“Lunch?”

“What?”

Bruce unzipped a worn-out side pocket, took out two pens, examined them, then tossed them out. He replaced them with two new ones from his own desk. “Five questions, in return for lunch, right? I’m game if you are.”

“I…”

“I’ve got a boring but important meeting at 1:30. If we leave now we can make it back in time.”

“I already packed a sandwich,” Clark said sulkily.

“What, this?” Bruce pulled out Clark’s saran-wrapped lunch from behind a length of duct tape. Then he unwrapped it and _actually took a bite_. Bruce Wayne just _stole his lunch_. What a _jock_.

“Did you _actually_ just…?”

“Hm,” said Bruce, chewing delicately. He looked down at the neat little bite mark he made in the corner. “What an… interesting combination.”

“You can’t have peanut butter by itself,” Clark muttered defensively.

Bruce carefully re-wrapped the sandwich and set it down on his desk, holding it by the corner with two fingertips. “So, lunch?”

“…ok, I guess.”

 

X

 

Bruce strode quickly down the street, the hapless reporter trotting behind him like an unfashionable, bespectacled shadow. Like someone Bruce Wayne wouldn’t, _shouldn’t_ be taking out to lunch. But here they were. And at least that duct-taped monstrosity was in the trash where it belonged.

Repartee was one of those new places that tried to be foreign and classic yet trendy and shiny at the same time. French-sounding entrees, leather menus, and a bar decorated in garish neon lights. The _best_ guacamole and chips in the city, _guaranteed_. He’d seen hundreds of such places open and then go out of business within years. Unfortunately, it was the kind of place that Bruce Wayne, the one who lied to the world, would have loved.

“Don’t we need a reservation?” Clark asked nervously, when he strode through the door, past a long line of the typical clientele. Tourists. Obliging husbands. Chic young things with credit cards linked to their parents’ accounts. Suit-and-tie financial traders with brash voices and phones stuck to their faces. 

“Not when you’re with me,” said Bruce.

They walked into a chorus of _Mr. Wayne! Right this way, sir, your table by the window_?

Clark stared at him when they were seated. “Do you _own_ this place?”

He shrugged nonchalantly, dropping his phone face down on the table and picking up the menu. “Technically I own the real estate company that owns the building. The head chef owns the business. I’m just the landlord.”

“Oh.”

Bruce listened carefully to the timber and inflection of that single word, replaying the sound in his head. Not an overawed, gushing “oh.” Or a sardonic, rolling “oh” that spoke of jealous resentment disguised as humor. Just plain “Oh.”

Clark Kent was neither impressed nor spiteful, which automatically made him different from most of Bruce’s lunch dates.

He directed Clark’s attention to the chalkboard list of specials on the wall, then turned his phone on the tabletop so the top edge was aligned with the profile of Clark’s face.

“Try the steak,” he suggested. “They do a pretty good steak here.”

Clark scoffed slightly. Even a small puff of laughter exposed a fraction of that million-dollar smile, a tiny yet gorgeous flash of teeth. “I’m from Kansas. I know a good steak when I meet one, and I wouldn’t come here to meet one.” He studied the menu like it was a newspaper article, before nodding decisively and ordering the XXL Jumbo Shrimp from the prix fixe section.

Bruce simply nodded at the waiter to bring his usual. “So how are the kittens doing?” he asked.

There was that smile. About 500 grand of it. “They’re doing great, actually. I just visited them at the shelter after work yesterday.”

“Any takers?”

“No, they haven’t been adopted yet. Leonard’s got a bad leg. That’s usually discouraging. I’d take them all home if I had the time  to look after them.”

“I’m sure you would. Leonard?”

Clark colored slightly. “I may have… named them after Star Trek characters. The shelter liked the idea. They’ve also got a corgi named Phaser and a Persian named V’ger.”

Bruce chuckled. “That’s… certainly something.”

They waiter brought him spinach soup. Mango and apple salad for Clark, who ate the dainty shredded fruit in gulping forkfuls. That made Bruce smile.

He deliberately inched his hand across the table towards Clark’s, to see how the other man would react.

Clark saw him coming and plopped something into Bruce’s hand.  “Here you go.”

Bruce stared, wondering how he’d ended up holding a saltshaker. He looked up sharply at Clark, but saw no signs of mockery in those blue eyes, no disingenuous fluttering of the lashes as poorly faked flirting. He’d probably ask if Bruce had wanted the pepper instead, if Bruce kept staring.   

“Thanks,” he said congenially, and sprinkled a few grains into his perfectly seasoned soup. “So…”

“So,” said Clark, and pulled out that damned pen and notepad.

Bruce chuckled. “Right down to business?”

An impish smile from Clark, flashing about $250 worth of teeth. “We need to get you back to that meeting at 1:30, remember?”

“Fair enough. First question?”

“Tell me about corporate strategy.”

He released a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. An easy start. He smiled his corporate smile and gave Clark the corporate answer, the _blah blah blah_ of his voice a monotone over Clark’s frantic scribblings.

“Any new product lines?”

He thought about that one for moment, the Star Trek kittens invading his thoughts, like a trio of annoying pets that padded silently but insistently into a private room. “WayneTech has been developing a new type of lens for NASA. We have plans to distribute the technology for more commercial uses. Telescopes and binoculars. Third question?”

“What’s your favorite color?” Clark asked incongruously.

Bruce blinked. Stirred his soup. “Green.”

 _Green_ , Clark wrote down, then drew a star next to the word. “Did you ever play competitive sports in high school?” he asked.

“Sports?”

“Yeah, you know,” Clark said, almost sheepishly. “Were you, ahem, like a jock or something?”

Bruce paused for a moment, considering. “I played lacrosse at one point. Does that count?”

 _Lacrosse_ , Clark wrote, his cheek twitching slightly. The waiter served up the next course. A pale salmon fillet for Bruce. Bulky, curled-up shrimps scorched with grill marks for Clark. A martini _on the house_ , _sir_ for Bruce, who accepted it with a nod. One for Clark too, who said “oh, thanks,” and then goggled at it like he didn’t know what to do with it.

He polished off two shrimps before asking the question Bruce knew was coming.

“What’s your position on the Bat vigilante?”

Corporate smile. Corporate answer. “Well, as a citizen, I can’t really condone vigilantism. Acting above the law in any circumstance is, well, against the law. But I guess, on some level, there is something admirable about an ordinary citizen standing up for what’s right.”

Clark licked grease off his bottom lip and paused with his pen above paper. Set the pen down with a click. “No.”

Bruce raised an eyebrow. “No?”

“No, that’s not what you really think. And green’s not really your favorite color.”

Bruce felt his face harden. “Excuse me?” The tines of his fork pressed into an uneaten piece of salmon, mashing the pink flesh into pieces.

His mind raced, like a rat in a maze. Suspicious. Trapped. Was that what the whole “five questions” was about? Some sort of fucked-up lie detector test, matching known truths against possible lies? He tried to laugh it off. “I don’t know what you’re…”

“You promised me the truth, Bruce,” Clark said softly, with the childish conviction that promises were worth something. Bruce stared back, jaw set, saying nothing.

“Ok,” Clark said finally, clicking his pen abruptly off. He swept pen and paper into his bag. Leaned forwards with elbows on the table. “Off the record, then. What are your thoughts on Batman?”

“Why do you care so much?” Bruce shot back.

“Because if anyone can say Gotham is their city, _you_ can. From a purely financial perspective, Gotham is yours. What do _you_ say about the man, this vigilante, that terrorizes your city? Who’s grown increasingly violent over the past years? Who uses the same tactics as a terrorist? So brutal that he’s actually driving criminal activity out of Gotham and into _my city_ , while simultaneously breeding more and more supervillains in his hometown?”

Bruce cleared his throat. “Like I said, while I can’t openly condone-”

Clark reached out and grabbed his hand. Startled, Bruce stared down at it, then back up at Clark, who studied him with focused yet faraway eyes. He suddenly felt stripped to the bone. Exposed and unsettled. By a pair of owlish blue eyes, framed in cheap black plastic.

“Why do you lie to the world, Bruce Wayne?” whispered the journalist, looking at Bruce like he was looking into the distance, trying to grasp something that was slipping away, something that he desperately wanted to keep. His hand held on like a tether. 

It was so easy to go on the defense, channeling the dark anger that came to him so quickly these days. Yet, part of him also wanted to scream, to spill his secrets like eviscerated innards, _I lie_ _because…!_

“You want to know what I think?” He gestured, almost angrily, at Clark’s bare neck. “I think your mother made you that scarf. That’s why I couldn’t find it any catalogue.” An unconscious bobbing of Clark’s Adam’s apple confirmed his suspicions.

“I had mother too, once. She never made any scarves, though. I bet your Mom makes you a scarf every birthday ( _Every Christmas,_ Clark corrected), that’s why you were willing to give it up for cat litter. I’m sure she loves you. I’m sure you love her.”

Bruce took a slow sip of his martini, studying Clark’s face. When he smiled, it came out twisted. Bitter. “Hilde Halle was a mother, and she loved her children. She didn’t knit, but she sewed. They found a half-finished dress and her sewing kit on her living room floor, where she’d been murdered right beneath where she was hanged from a light fixture. She’d pissed on that dress as she died.”

He still remembered the sight of her, swinging like a condemned witch, her face blue, her tongue lolling and black, a thimble still on her thumb. He remembered the sickly sweet stench of death, how it penetrated the cowl’s air filters, the young cop throwing up in the corner of the room, the Commissioner shaking his head in furious, sorrowful jerks. The half-finished girl’s dress, a resized hand-me-down that had been patched and re-patched. Pink ruffles. Stale urine.

Without realizing it, he’d slotted his hand fully into Clark’s. He held on, to this tether, this connection. As long as he held on, he was _real_ , and the man who lied to the world could finally tell the truth. 

“Sammy and Sisi Halle, the twins, were found strangled in their beds. They were only eight. Debbie was found in a closet, alive but traumatized. She’d seen the whole thing. Haven’t spoken a word since. When they found the guy who did it, asked him why he did it, that sonofabitch _laughed_ and said, ‘because it was a good joke.’ The Halle family was his fifth murder spree. And Debbie Halle… she was put in a psychiatric ward after a mental breakdown. Two weeks later, she strangled her roommate. Didn’t say a word. Just laughed and laughed.”

Bruce clinically catalogued the journalist’s emotions while he was speaking. Crinkled brow, slightly open mouth. No revulsion. No fear. No useless, limp sadness that most people had for far-off natural disasters and kidnapped children. But something real, like genuine heartbreak.

“I remember the Halle murders,” whispered Clark. “It was a long time ago.” He looked down for a moment. “So are you saying that extreme violence is justified in these cases?”

Bruce only realized his fingers were clenching Clark’s hand when he saw the other flinch. Had to mentally force himself to loosen his grip. “I’m saying that there’s a sickness in Gotham. And that Batman may be just as sick, but… Well, sometimes, the cure is just as bad as the disease.”

“Hmm…”

They said nothing for a long time. The waiters cleared their plates, wiped around their linked hands. Took away Clark’s untouched martini. They must looked odd, two men over thirty in a restaurant almost full of twenty-somethings, holding hands like teenagers.

“My father told me violence was never the answer,” Clark said softly. “By the time I was seven, I’d seen him face off bigger, meaner, more vicious men than himself and never even raise his voice, much less a hand in anger. He truly, truly believed that violence had no place in our world, and because he did, I believed it too. I idolized him. Never fought in school. Never pushed back at anyone.”  

He smoothed his thumb over Bruce’s knuckles, absentmindedly, a gesture more comforting than Bruce would like to admit.

“And then one day, me’n Dad were coming back from town with parts for the old planter. I had an ice cream cone. I think it might’ve been chocolate, maybe with sprinkles on top. Just as we were pulling into the driveway, we saw these three punks by the barn messing with my mom. Not really hurting her, at least not yet. Just… _messing_ with her. I could hear her telling them off, her voice sort of panicky-calm, not quite yelling. I wasn’t scared. I knew Dad would fix things, the way he always did. He would go over there, talk to them, they’d apologize, best friends all around. I turned to Dad, slurping my ice cream without a care in the world, knowing everything would be alright.

“Then I got a look at his face.” Clark’s voice hitched. “I had _never_  seen him look like that. It was the first and only time in my life I’d been scared, really scared, of Dad. He didn’t even say a word, just walked to the back of the pickup and took out the baseball bat. Started walking towards them, all quiet. No shouting, no cussing. His face wasn’t even red, but dead white. I was all of seven years old and I’d never seen death before, outside of the occasional farm animal. But I saw death that day. I knew, I _knew,_ that Dad was going to kill them.”

Bruce could see it clearly, the denim overall-ed farmer with Clark’s jaw clenched tight in rage, death in his eyes. Baseball bat swinging, ready to do murder to the first man who touched a hair on his wife’s head. Silently, viciously, Bruce cheered him on.

“He didn’t touch them,” said Clark. “He didn’t have to. They saw him coming, took one look at his face, and ran. I stood there watching, ice cream on the ground, and thought I was going to be sick. My Dad didn’t touch them. But he died a little in my eyes that day.”

Bruce stared at him, disbelieving. “You _blamed_ your father?”

“I didn’t know who to blame,” said Clark, shaking his head. “I thought about it again and again that night and the next, not sleeping, wondering why I was suddenly afraid of the world. Was it Dad’s fault? I thought he was the most loving man in the world until his eyes went black like that. Was it Mom’s fault, for being in the situation in the first place? Was it the young guys who harassed her? Their parents? Their teachers? Violence was never the answer, until it was. Violence wasn’t supposed to touch us, not the Kents. Until it did.”

“So what are you saying? That your Dad was wrong for what he did, what he attempted to do? That Batman should hang up his cape and let the mob and the freaks take over Gotham, just because violence is _scary_?”

Clark laughed ruefully. “No. I know better now, of course. Things are never so simple. I’m saying I _understand_ , Bruce. The anger, the rage, the desire to _hurt_. I may not forgive it, but I understand it because I’ve seen it before, in someone that I loved very much. My hero.”

The implication was… interesting. “What if…” Bruce trailed off, cleared his throat, then tried again, “Do you ever wonder what would’ve happened if your Dad hadn’t grabbed the baseball bat?”

“All the time. But I what I wonder more is: what if he actually went through with it? What then? Would any of us have walked away unscathed?”

_Two shots in the night. A scatter of pearls. A scream that tore his young throat apart. A dying whisper. Martha…_

“Thank you, Clark. For telling me this.”

Clark smiled. Then looked down and seemed to realize that he was holding Bruce’s hand. Yanked it back like he’d been burned. Had to pretend to adjust his glasses. It was unintentionally comical.

The smile that cracked Bruce’s face was surprising, but it felt _good._

They didn’t talk again until the server arrived with Clark’s parfait, and a cup of black coffee for Bruce.

“So what _is_ your favorite color?” Clark asked, adjusting and readjusting his napkin. He looked up at Bruce, almost shyly.

“Blue,” said Bruce, staring steadily back into those coke-bottle eyes. “Light blue.” A blush spread from Clark’s neck to the roots of his hair. Pink wasn’t bad either, Bruce decided.

Clark took a spoonful of dessert and said, “This is so good I think I might cry,” which startled a bark of  laughter from Bruce. Impulsively, he poked his coffee spoon into  the frosty dessert glass and stole a bite. It was wholly unlike him to do so. He never liked sweets, even as a child.

He immediately puckered his face. It was sticky and oversweet. Sickening, almost. But Clark was grinning at him with an expression of _it’s good, right_? So he smiled and nodded. Stole another bite. Then Clark shoved a third one straight into his mouth, like an overenthusiastic mother, and he laughed around the spoon, giddy with emotional release, neither of them commenting on the weirdness of the situation. Third time was the charm. It wasn’t so bad. He didn’t even care that it gummed up the underside of his tongue.

He helped Clark put on his coat as they left, pausing to whisper into his ear, “By the way, if anything I gave you off the record makes it to print, if I see anything at all on the _Planet_ ’s website, on any anonymous blogs…”

“What are you going to do?” Clark whispered back, hiding a smirk.

 _What are you going to do to me? said Clark_ , _back pressed against an alleyway wall, glaring defiantly at Batman_.

An unexpected coil of arousal unfurled itself in Bruce’s stomach. “I’ll cut off all communication with you,” he said. “And we’ll never see each other again. And I don’t want to do that. In fact, I very much want to see you again.”

They stood almost nose-to-nose for a long moment, blocking the doorway, ignoring the mortally offended looks they were getting from the other patrons.

“You won’t see a word of it,” promised Clark.

They bumped shoulders as they walked back to the WayneFinancial building. Clark kept his hands in his pockets, cupping them to his mouth to blow on them occasionally. He could do with a pair of gloves. Bruce watched him fumble the bicycle lock twice before finally getting it open. Watched him get up with a little puff of frustration, the tip of his nose red from the cold.

He didn’t even realize he was leaning in until Clark stopped him, fingertips over his lips. “Don’t kiss me,” he said. “Not yet. It’s just lunch, remember?”

Bruce watched him roll out his shabby secondhand bike halfway down the block, then pause, before propping it on a nearby telephone pole and heading back at a jog. He hugged Bruce, arms flung around his shoulders, cheek pressed against Bruce’s stubbly chin. He smelled of lemon air freshener.

“Call me,” Clark whispered in his ear. “Don’t ask me for my number, I know you already have it,” he said cheekily, before taking off.

Bruce was late to the 1:30 meeting, but didn’t care.

X

“You’ll be wanting a full background check, then?” Alfred grumbled later that day, when Bruce stopped by the BatCave with a loaded phone. He linked it to the computer and photographs of Clark in profile, Clark smiling, Clark looking down at the napkin in  his lap flashed across the giant screens. Voice samples collected by Bruce over the course of lunch ran through the computer, analyzed, computed. Scans of his driver’s license, social security card, employee ID  scrolled down the monitor.

“Run a voice and facial recognition too,” said Bruce. “I want to know where he’s been.”

“Special boy. Any reason you’re particularly interested?”

“Because he’s particularly interested in Batman.”

Bruce lingered for a moment, staring at a grainy still of Clark. Glasses crooked. Shy smile. A curl dangling over his forehead. He’d seen and known hundreds of people, from baby-innocent ingénues to the worst of the worst, and thought he’d memorized all their ways. But _this_ one didn’t follow any script he knew. How could someone catch him so off guard, yet with every word, make him feel like he was coming home?

“Master Bruce?” said Alfred, voice strange.

“Yeah?”

 “You’re _smiling_.”

“Yeah, it’s what happens when the muscles on the side of your mouth contract upwards,” he threw nonchalantly over his shoulder, turning on his heel and heading deeper into the BatCave, where Batman’s suit waited for him.

X

_Present day_

There was something in the water. Tied upside down so that the top of his head just skimmed the surface,  he could see _it_ swimming in the murky depths below, an occasional flash of something pale and scaly and huge.

Joker was ranting, the upside down image of him pacing back and forth agitatedly, fists swinging at the air, Harley Quinn cowering almost comically in the corner of the room.

“I ask for _one_ thing, _one damn thing,_ Harley!”

“It wasn’t my fault, Mr. J…”

“All I wanted was two dozen flesh-eating piranha imported from Venezuela and you bring me _goldfish?!_ ”

“The dealer _told_ me they were piranha, he _said_. Though, I guess I shoulda been suspicious at the price he was offering, but then again, I didn’t wanna break the budget…”

“What am I supposed to do now?”

“Goldfish can be vicious too. One of them bit my finger.”

“One of them bit your finger. I wanted fish that can strip the flesh from cows in seconds, and you somehow think _one of them nibbling your finger_ is a selling point?!”

“Eep!”

A shrill ring stopped Joker mid-slap. He groaned, “Harley, get the phone.” Then looked at Clark’s heaving form as if just seeing him. “Oh, and cut him loose, wontcha?”

The next thing he knew, he was plunging headfirst into cold, greasy water. He choked, thrashing. The cold seemed to cut through him, sharp and painful. He felt the skin of his wrists tear open as he struggled against the cuffs.

_Don’t panic, don’t panic._

He forced himself to stop struggling. He was loose. That was important. He was loose. He wriggled himself upright and dolphin-kicked with his feet, lifting himself up towards the surface.

He was almost free.

Something grabbed his ankle. The _something_ that was in the water with him. The low laughter he heard in the dark. _It_ held him with scaled, thick fingers. Clark looked down into the depths of the water and saw glowing yellow eyes.

A scream bubbled up in his lungs.

The next thing he knew, he was regaining consciousness, being hauled out of the industrial-sized chemical vat, a tank big enough to be a swimming pool that they’d filled with water, by two henchmen. He was tossed on his side to the concrete floor, and then he was coughing up water next to the Joker’s shoes.

“You’ve got the wrong guy,” he wheezed, the first coherent words he’d been able to speak since he was taken.

 _Taken_ was the internal word he used for it: the instant a needle had been jammed through his sleeve and a bag slammed over his head, arms taking him into a chokehold as his knees buckled. _Taken_ and not _kidnapped_ , because kidnapping had a purpose. As far as he could tell over the past few days, the Joker, who alternated between violent, mellow, and hysterically happy with alarming rapidity, had no purpose for anything he did. No purpose for the humiliating videos. No purpose for lashing out at friends and foe alike. None.

And he had no idea where he was. It felt and looked, whenever they allowed him any light, like an old warehouse. He thought he could hear high winds through the walls. Thought he could smell the briny waft of the sea whenever the doors were opened and closed.

He shook his head slowly to clear it, then managed to prop himself up on his side with his elbow. The cold water had been painful, but it had sharpened his senses. “You’ve got the wrong guy,” he repeated. “I don’t know who you are. I shouldn’t be here.”

A low crackle of laughter from the Joker, who looked down at him with that slash of a smile with something akin to fondness. He touched the toe of his shoe to Clark’s bare thigh, ran it over a ridge of old scar tissue, before viciously stomping down, eliciting a dull groan. “No, sweetheart. You’re exactly where you need to be.”

“Mr. J?” said Harley, shuffling back in. She gave Clark a glance before saying in a stage whisper, “The boss man called. He’s not too happy.”

Joker growled and threw a poorly-aimed kick at Clark, before whirling around on her. “ _Don’t_ call him the boss man! This is _my_ house, _I’m_ the boss here.”

“But it’s not really our house – eep!”

Joker took three leaping steps towards her, kicking up his heels like he was dancing, and raised his arm.

The last thing Clark wanted was Joker’s rage refocused on him, but he never could bear to see a man hitting a woman.

“Hey!” he shouted hoarsely, wincing at how much it hurt his chest. “Tell me why I’m here. What do you want with me?”

It worked. Harley was ignored. Joker turned back to him, and Clark had to fight not to recoil when the clown squatted down next to him, scrawny knees poking out on either side of him like purple doorknobs. His fingers were bony but dangerously strong as he grabbed a sopping handful of dark curls.

“Maybe I just want the pleasure of your company, sweetheart,” he purred.

“If it’s the _Daily Planet_ you’ve got it out for, I never slandered you. I don’t even _know_ you. If it’s something I wrote that offended you, then I’m _sorry_ …”

“Don’t apologize,” said the Joker. “I absolutely _loathe_ apologies.” His tongue darted out, horrible and red, to lick his upper lip. His expression could have been a smile or a snarl, the prelude to a joke or a bite.

It filled Clark’s vision, Joker’s mouth. The world began and ended with the red corners of that awful smile.

“I don’t have any money,” said Clark, his voice starting strong but dying into a whisper. “You won’t get anything from me but a secondhand bike and an overdue gas bill. I’m nobody.”

“Nobody?” Joker said, cocking his head to one side as if considering the word, like a teacher who pretended to consider a wrong answer to humor the student. _Mmhm, are you_ sure _that’s what the poet meant in the fourth stanza, Clark? Do you want to reread it and take another shot?_

A ring appeared in Joker’s hand. A diamond eternity ring, sized perfectly to the third finger of Clark’s left hand.

His blood ran cold.

“ _Let’s dream big together_ ,” said the Joker, his creaky voice giving the lovingly crafted words sharp edges. “ _Love, B._ ”

“Give it back.” The furious command was out of his mouth before he could stop it.

“ _Oooh_ ,” crooned the Joker, mock-painfully, as if acknowledging a hit. “I may not know everything about you, Clark Joseph Kent, but I do know something about diamonds. And baby, with stones like these, you definitely aren’t _nobody_.”

He grabbed Clark’s bloody cuffed hands and slipped the ring on. “For better or for worse,” he teased in a sing-song voice. On the other side of the room, Harley Quinn watched the facsimile proposal with suspicious, darting eyes, her face red under the white foundation. “I’m willing to bet if I sent this ring, along with the finger it’s on, to a special _someone_ , he’d be willing to pay and pay big for the rest of you.”

“Stoppit, Puddin’!” wailed Quinn, hands clutched to the sides of her head like a child throwing a tantrum. “I don’t _like_ the way you’re looking at him!”

“Harleeey, Hooooney, you know I don’t kiss around,” Joker called over his shoulder at her. Then faced Clark again, leaning close, “But for you… I might make an exception.”

Before those disgusting scarlet lips could touch his, Clark snapped his head forward and bashed his forehead into the soft part of Joker’s face. The clown fell back with a startled groan, white hands cupping bloodied nose.

A shriek, and Quinn was darting towards him, fist lashing out, punching him so hard his entire body lurched to the side. If he hadn’t been on the ground already, it would have floored him. He coughed and tasted blood.

“ _Don’t you dare hurt my Puddin’!_ ”

Her heeled boot came down on his ribs; he felt something crack. She kicked him again, hard enough to send him skidding across wet concrete. The blood was in his eyes now, dripping down from a reopened head wound.

He curled his knees up, shielded his face with his cuffed hands, but Joker caught her elbow before she could strike again.

“Now, now, Harley, you don’t want to do that.”

Clark groaned and tried to raise himself up on his elbows, his breath coming out in short, painful wheezes, his bare knees scraping on the floor, then froze when he saw _something_ rise from the vat of water. Pale and huge, scaly and jowly like an animal, but shaped like a human. Heavyset arms and legs. Leering mouth.

It spoke, “Yeah, don’t hurt the face. I like them _pretty_.” It heaved itself over the edge and landed on the floor, a hulking, unconcernedly naked man-monster, and loped towards Clark. It had massive, swinging genitalia between its legs which, to Clark’s sick horror, began to rise with arousal.

Clark scrabbled backwards, ignoring his throbbing body, but in two loping strides, the creature was on him. It grabbed a calf and pulled him under its heaving, grinning self, flipping him over easily so his injured ribs collided with the ground, making him nearly sob in pain. He felt hands on his hips, lifting him up and _spreading_ so that every part of him was exposed, felt a thick finger press down the crack of his buttocks, a pressure at his entrance, the heavy drag of an erection against his thigh, trailing sticky wetness.

Words were spilling from his mouth, panicky-calm, “Don’t do this, you don’t have to do this, please don’t do this _…”_ Laughter in the background, shrill and crackling.

Without warning, he was dropped, his stomach and hips hitting the concrete with a fleshy smack. The weight above him eased, then disappeared in a rush of musky, fishy body odor. Low, guttural laughter. A sharp smack on his rear that had him gasping and shaking.

“Nah, I was just messing with you. Just _messing_. Wasn’t going to hurt you. Yet.”

Heavy footfalls, then a loud splash. A ripple of water. A pathetic, frightened whimper from between his own teeth.

When he looked up, Joker was hovering over him, smiling coldly. The blood Clark had drawn was drying in crusty ribbons from his nose to his sharp chin. He didn’t seem to care.

“Try something with me again,” said Joker in that creaky, laugh-hoarse voice, “and I’ll let Croc and his boys do whatever they want to you. Fair warning, our scaly friend has a _perverse_ appetite. So take another shot at me if you want. Or don’t.” He gestured towards the camera and tripod in the center of the room. “Either way, it’s good entertainment.” Threw his head back and laughed, and laughed.

Clark pushed himself up with the last of his strength, just high enough for his face not to be on the floor, and threw up all over his hands, and Bruce’s ring.

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much for reading!!!! 
> 
> I really hope no one has a soft spot for Killer Croc, because he's an all-out villain in this story. His appearance is based on the animated series, but his personality is partly based on the "Joker" comic, which is the most chilling and dark I've ever seen him. 
> 
> Feedback, as always, is greatly appreciated!!!


	5. Lois

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clark and Bruce's first date, and Lois steps in.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See the absolutely gorgeous fanart by Albilibertea  
> [here](http://p0werbottomsuperman.tumblr.com/post/145408043930/my-fav-scene-from-ellends-two-cities-its-soooo)
> 
> and here: [here](http://p0werbottomsuperman.tumblr.com/post/145408040545/you-have-me-he-said-when-he-looked-back-up)

_Past_

 

Perry was ranting at him again. Good ol’ blustery Perry.

“You messed up the kitten article, Kent! How do you mess up an article about kittens? They’re freakin’ adorable, and therefore impossible to mess up! Everyone loves ‘em!”

Clark smiled and nodded dutifully. “Mmhmm.”

Perry swiveled his computer monitor around, his elbow nearly knocking over the white-and-red Chinese takeout box in the Food Corner of his desk. On the screen, a digital Clark Kent shimmied up a tree, baby-talked a kitten, and fell out of it like an overgrown baby falling out of the proverbial cradle. “You got _involved_ again. What did I tell you about getting _involved_?”

“Mmhmm,” Clark hummed absently. “Yessir, you’re absolutely right.”

“ _Don’t do it_ , I said. Those were my exact words, _don’t get involved_. I’ll have to give the kitten story to one of the interns to finish.”

“Mmm.”

“Grown-ass man climbing up a tree… what were you even _thinking_? Thinking of moonlighting as a fireman? Kent? Are you even listening to me? Why are you smiling?”

“Sorry, sir. Won’t happen again.”

“… you’re still smiling.”

Clark consciously turned his smile upside down. Slumped his shoulders to look adequately contrite as Perry continued his lecture, in reality hearing nothing but a Charlie Brown-esque _mwah mwah_ _mwah_ as he replayed the phone conversation he’d had with Bruce earlier that day.

_Are you busy tonight?_

_Well, sort of, I guess. I was going to get a head start on the weekend laundry load, there’s a replay of this ball game I was thinking of watching over some takeout, maybe get a jump start on that Sunday deadline, do some baking…_

A warm chuckle over the phone. _Sounds like a full night. I was actually wondering if I could take you out to dinner._

_Uh… oh. Oh! Y-yeah sure, I’d… I’d like that._

_I can get reservations at this French restaurant downtown with a really nice atmosphere-_

_I’d… really prefer somewhere casual. Please._

_Sure. I can do casual. What do you have in mind?_

_Pizza?_

_Sure. I can do pizza._

_Giuseppe’s?_

_That’s fine._

_Great! I’ll meet you there…_

Clark walked out of Perry’s office like he was walking on marshmallows. Was it just him or was everything unusually cheery that day? Even the watered-down communal coffee, served in the puke-green break room, tasted heavenly. On his way back to his cubicle, he congratulated Lenny on his 30th wedding anniversary, complimented Deb’s new cardigan; she blushed and called him a sweet-talker.

Even the small crowd that’d gathered around Lombard’s desk to watch the latest YouTube video of the Kitten Fiasco couldn’t dull his mood. _Hilarious Kitten Rescue (Remix)_. There was already a remix. You could watch the whole thing on a loop, with Clark’s voice auto-tuned to the Meow Mix jingle.

_Haw haw haw_ went Lombard’s guffaw.

“Very funny, guys,” Clark said breezily, draining his coffee before reverently putting his Superman mug in its place on his shelf, shoving his laptop and note binder into his new messenger bag, and slinging on his jacket.

“Nice,” said Lombard, nodding at the digital Clark grabbing the kitten from the rooftop, a bug-eyed expression on his face just as the branch beneath him started breaking. “Only way Kent’s ever gonna get any puss-”

“ _Don’t_ finish that thought, it’s gross,” said Clark, turning his collar up in expectation of a cold, windy day. He should really get another scarf.

Lois came out of the elevator just as he was getting in.

“Got another story?”

“Nope, just leaving early,” he said, feeling the corners of his mouth creep up again.

“Huh. You never leave early.”

“Yeah…”

She leaned against the elevator doors as they were about to close, ignoring the distressed ding in favor of studying him, her head cocked to one side in that familiar expression. “Why are you smiling like that?”

“Am I?”

“Yeah, like the cat that ate the canary.”

“Hm, don’t remember having that for lunch.” He poked her in the side to make her giggle, giving her a cheeky wave as she flounced off with an “ok, whatever” and the elevator doors clunked mercifully shut so that he wouldn’t have to spill that he was leaving early to get ready for a… date.

 

X

 

Years down the line, he and Bruce  would bicker about which occasion was actually that mystical romcom phenomenon known as the _first date_. He would vehemently maintain that lunch at Repartee’s was _just lunch_ and therefore didn’t count, while Bruce would argue that it had been obviously more than that, there had been _chemistry_ , there’d been a spark, that _just because it went unspoken at the time didn’t mean it wasn’t a date, Clark._

But Clark always considered pizza at Giuseppe’s their _first date,_ and he was certainly nervous enough in the hours that led to it. He showered, brushed his teeth, flossed, then ran the electric razor over the 5 o’clock shadow. He picked out his outfit with exceeding care, dressed, then went back into the bathroom to brush his teeth.

Called Mom. Talked about work and the farm, the neighbors, yes he was eating enough, no he still wasn’t married yet, no he didn’t get her latest package from home but he was looking forward to it, no he hadn’t won a Pew-lit-tzer yet but fingers were crossed. Hung up after a round of I-love-you’s and went back to the bathroom to brush his teeth.

He was about to head out until he realized he had two hours to kill and the last coffee he drank was making him twitch with nervous energy.

He changed into sweats and had pedaled halfway to his gym before remembering that they closed early today. Pedaled back, ran upstairs for a hoodie, then ran back downstairs to jog three times around the block, his breath puffing out in bursts of white steam and his eyes tearing up in the cold air.

He met Mrs. Zeto and her triplets in the lobby on his way back up, assaulted by an arpeggio of _Clarkie, Clarkie, Clarkie!_ and little hands grabbing unconcernedly at his sweat-soaked shirt. He picked up two of them, one on each bicep, pretending to lift weights with the giggling tots, while the third squawked shrilly at being neglected, until Clark lifted him up under the armpits and flew him through the air like plane. One of the girls dropped her barrette on the floor and he picked it up, only to hold the yellow plastic bow out of her reach so that all three kids were jumping for it, a cacophony of laughter echoing down the hallway.  

“S’good to see you, Mrs. Z,” he said, not quite sure what mood she was in today. She always seemed to be either really happy to see him or oddly annoyed at him. It was 50/50. He wasn’t sure why.

“Good to see you too,” she said, smiling sweetly and looking up and down at him. It was a Happy day, then. She took a step closer and touched his shoulder, just as Triplet #1 snatched the barrette out of his hand and the three of them ran down the hall shrieking, clearly expecting him to chase them. “My husband’s  on another one of those _business trips_. I never see _him_ around much anymore.” Her voice dropped an octave. “It gets pretty lonely at night, if you know what I mean. After I put the kids to bed, I’m pretty much all by myself. Just me and a bottle of expensive wine, in that big, empty apartment. _Real_ lonely.”

“Oh no, that’s awful,” said Clark. “I’m real sorry to hear that. Next time I see Mr. Z, I’ll have to talk with him about being home more. Family first, right?”

And just like that, she went from Happy to Annoyed. She made an _ugh_ sound and rolled her eyes, then snapped her fingers at the triplets to _come along now_ , herding them out the door with a series of ear pinches and smacks to the rump.

He couldn’t really blame her. Being a mother of three was tough. He was a handful when he was a kid, and his own Mom was almost constantly annoyed with him.

“Hang in there, Mrs. Z!” he called cheerfully after her.

He met Mrs. Peckle from down the hall, the kindly but absentminded lady he sometimes dogsat for. Her bulldog, Chomper, who hated everyone in the building except for Clark and the janitor, was with her and insisted on giving him a face full of doggy kisses. 

Paranoid about whether Bruce was allergic to dogs, Clark scrubbed extra hard in the shower, washing off sweat, drool, and dog hair, then brushed his teeth.

The first clean underwear he grabbed from the dresser was a garish pair of Superman boxers, the ones Lois called his _chastity_ _belt_ during their brief, sexless fling; they were so ugly that no one who saw them would even attempt to get inside them. As secure as a chastity belt. He agonized for long moments, towel slipping down his hips and dripping water onto the rug, before slipping them on, the giant S on his crotch like a shield.

Throwing on his clothes, he was about to head out but had a mild panic attack when he caught sight of himself in the mirror, and realized he’d dressed for an interview instead of a casual date. Ditched the tie. Slipped on jeans and a checked flannel shirt.

He dialed Mom again, making up something to talk about with nothing really to say, just needing to hear her voice, the rumble of the tractor in the background, the pop of grease in the pan, the sounds of home. Another round of I-love-you’s and come-visit-soon’s, before he hung up and headed to the bathroom to brush his teeth, wondering why he was running out of toothpaste.

He rifled out another Mom scarf from the cardboard box on the top shelf of his closet, bright red and homemade, like all the others. He wrapped it all the way up to his ears, the warm, gamey scent of wool comforting as he pedaled his way to Giuseppe’s, dodging icy patches and puddles.

Bruce was waiting for him up front, looking handsome and broody and slightly wind-ruffled as his coat swayed in the breeze like a cape, and Clark felt his stomach go all fluttery-sick again. “I’m _so_ sorry I’m late,” he panted, hopping off and locking up his bike with trembling fingers.

But Bruce was smiling, a slow languid smile that crinkled the corners of his eyes, and it went straight to the pit of Clark’s stomach like a gulp of hot chocolate, and he was smiling too, a smile of uncontained joy, and he was walking straight into Bruce’s arms like it was the most natural thing in the world, breathing in the scent of cologne and wool as strong arms wrapped tightly around him, holding him close, and the he thought _I’m flying, I can fly…_

“New scarf?” said Bruce, nuzzling at red wool, his mouth almost on top of Clark’s, separated only by a fuzzy layer of warmth. Bruce pulled the layer of wool from his nose and mouth to tuck it gently under his chin, and said, “there, now I can see you.”

Giuseppe’s smelled like warm dough and spices, a homey, mouthwatering smell that drew you in like those cartoon scent vapors that beckoned teasingly with a crooked finger. The tables were welcomingly covered in red-and-white checkered tablecloths and matching napkins, tiny menus propped up, tiny glass fishbowls with candles inside. Only about three items on the menu, pizza, lasagna, and green salad, all of them wonderful. (There was no dessert or dinks menu, but you could ask for just about anything and they’d bring it to you.) Strings of Christmas lights shone in the windows, black-and-white photographs adorned the wood-paneled walls. Bruce pulled out his seat for him when they got to their table and the waiter brought them a rose in a slim vase.

They ordered a pizza between them, Bruce smiling and nodding to whatever toppings Clark suggested. Coke for Clark. “The same, please” for Bruce.

“Any questions for me today?” teased Bruce.

“I didn’t think of any,” said Clark, laughing.

“Not even one?”

“What’s it like, being Bruce Wayne?” Clark teased back.

“Right now?” said Bruce, taking Clark’s hand from across the table, “I’d say I have it pretty good.”

The food arrived in a steam of cheesy goodness. Bruce served him first, handling the pie spade with dexterous expertise.

Between the second shower and fourth teeth brushing, he’d worked himself into a nervous frenzy about dinnertime conversation, what he’d possibly talk about to the man who’d travelled the world and probably owned houses in each country. But Bruce had a way of distracting him from his own worries, putting him at ease with a single smile, so that even the silences were comfortable. The words came easily enough

Bruce talked golf and Clark talked baseball.

“I didn’t even know you played golf.”

“I thought you journalists did your research before going in?”

“I wouldn’t want to know everything about someone on a date. I thought that was part of the adventure, figuring things out as we go.” He smiled, then tilted his head curiously to study Bruce’s face. “Besides,” he mused, “I think I can do all the research in the world and not really know you. You’re a hard man to read sometimes, Bruce.”

Bruce’s head jerked slightly at that, and he gave Clark a strange, tense sort of smile.

They talked films and the political situation in Kosovo, farming in Smallville and housing development in Gotham, laughed about how Midwesterners always bought soda in two-liter bottles instead of cans and made casseroles out of snack chips. They joked about Clark’s favorite conspiracy theorists’ blogs.

Bruce waved his wallet away when the check came. “Please,” he said. “Let me.”

“No, it’s ok,” said Clark, shaking his head. “I don’t mind.”

“I do. I meant to take you out.”

“But really…”

“Clark…”

“I ate most of everything,” Clark rambled. “And you let me pick the toppings off your share, you don’t like pepperoni, how weird is that, and besides, you already got lunch the other day and I thought I should…”

“ _Clark_.”

He closed his mouth, blushing. Stupid. A few dollars was nothing to Bruce Wayne. What was he trying to prove, with his battered wallet and measly handful of cash?

But Bruce was smiling that slow, languid smile again, while handing a slim black credit card to the waiter with barely a sideways glance. “It’s a _date,_ Clark. I asked you out, didn’t I?”

“I… I suppose.”

“Then let me take you out.”

“I’m sorry,” Clark mumbled, as Bruce slipped his jacket on for him, giving his shoulders a slight massage in the process. “I’m not… very good at this. I don’t get asked out on many dates.”

“I can’t imagine why,” said Bruce, the words a puff on the back of Clark’s neck.

They ended up walking the distance to Clark’s apartment, him rolling the bike along beside them, Bruce’s hand occasionally touching his elbow. The temperature was rapidly plummeting but he felt warm.

“I have to admit,” said Bruce, as they neared the last block, “I was pretty nervous about tonight. Think I changed my shirt about three times.”

Clark looked at him in surprise. “Really? You, nervous?”

“Believe it or not.”

A burble of laughter escaped his chest and he bumped his head against Bruce’s shoulder. “That’s nothing. You should have seen me. I had to run around the block to get rid of the jitters. I showered twice and didn’t even realize I was wearing my chastity belt at first, had to change my outfit, and I think I brushed my teeth more than once-”

“Hold up. Chastity belt?”

Clark stopped short, the spokes of his bike wheels squeaking. He gulped. “Th-that’s not what I said.”

“No, I’m pretty sure I heard correctly.”

If Clark ever wished the ground could swallow him up, it would be now, as Bruce flicked a horrified sort of glance in the general direction of the area below his belt.

“It’s not some kind of weird sex thing!” he declared, which only made Bruce raise an eyebrow, and then he was spilling out the whole embarrassing story about the Superman underpants in a panic-babble, after which Bruce’s face twisted really weirdly and he lurched away from Clark, facing the wall of the nearest building.

“Bruce…?” Clark squeaked, thinking _well, this is it, I’ll never see him again, he’ll probably report me to the International Pervert Police and I’ll have to be locked up…_

Except there was a strangled sort of noise coming from Bruce and his broad shoulders were shaking, like he was having some sort of fit.

“Bruce, are you ok?”

Clark had his arms around Bruce’s middle and his hands in the Heimlich position before he realized Bruce was laughing. Not the smooth, cultured _Ahahaha_ he mostly used, but a full-on undignified _snarfle_. 

“Stop that, it’s not that funny,” Clark was saying indignantly, hands on Bruce’s shoulders, but he was laughing too and burying his face in Bruce’s coat and they were both shaking with the hilarity of the situation.

“How bad?” asked Bruce.

“It has a cape in the back,” Clark mumbled into Bruce’s lapel, which set them both off again.

Eventually the giggles died down, and Bruce’s hand was in his hair and they were very, very close, and he couldn’t stop thinking _this is it, he’s going to kiss me, it’s happening, what do I do?_

But Bruce came in with head turned to the side, slotting them together, cheek to cheek, holding Clark tenderly and gently to him for a long moment. There wasn’t even a kiss on the cheek, just a soft scrape of Bruce’s stubbly chin against his cheek before he was released. It left him at once relieved and wholly unfulfilled.

Slightly stricken, he wondered if Bruce was somehow dissatisfied with him, until he heard the husky whisper in his ear, “When can I see you again?” and pulled back to see Bruce’s tender smile.

 

X

 

And then it was perfect.

They went on a second date. Bruce liked postmodern painting and Clark liked black and white nature photography, so they spent the better part of an afternoon trawling the galleries in lower Metropolis, stopping occasionally for coffee, sandwiches, and sugar-frosted pastries that left crumbs all over his lap. Clark, admiring an original Ansel Adams, had to physically restrain Bruce from buying it off the wall for him.

_You can’t just spend $20,000 on me!_

_Why not?_

_You just… can’t! And besides, where would I even put it? Next to the Star Trek poster?_

There was a third date, and a fourth and et cetera, the kisses Bruce left on his cheek or forehead burning sweetly for hours afterwards. At night, he curled his hand around where Bruce’s lips touched, smiled into his pillow, and felt like a schoolgirl.

He lived in a bubble. He lived in a movie. He lived in a sitcom, in that moment when the bumbling female main character _finally_ found her true love of the week after a series of hilarious missed opportunities, and the studio audience was chorusing an extended _awwwww_. He was a cliché and he didn’t care.

Clark, who was never much of a texter, found that he suddenly was.

_Boring meeting, wish it was over._

_You won’t believe the crazy day I had..._

_Meet me later at…_

_Wish you were here, miss you._

_Miss you._

They were at that stage when everything was interesting and exciting, even when they’d run out of things to talk about. And even then, they could spend time completely without words, just walking through the park with his head on Bruce’s shoulder, his cold hand in Bruce’s gloved one, as silent as the falling snow.

Bruce liked golf. Clark liked baseball. Bruce liked old films, Clark liked movies with explosions and car chases and handfuls of buttery popcorn. They both had a fondness for Dickens and Nova. Bruce liked scotch, Clark liked beer and sugary soft drinks. Bruce liked obscenely expensive old-fashioned restaurants where he knew the native-born French chef by name. Clark liked food trucks, overstuffed burritos, pastrami sandwiches, pizza, and…

_Basically, you’d eat anything._

_That’s not true, I have a very refined… yeah, I’d eat anything._

Bruce liked ballet. Clark liked ballgames. Bruce spoke about seven European languages. Clark spoke broken Spanish, Pashto, and conversational Klingon.

Their differences didn’t bother him. The paparazzi and their sneaky cameras didn’t bother him either. In fact, not much bothered him these days. “Wipe that goofy grin off your face,” became Perry’s default greeting for him. It didn’t matter that deadlines were creeping up and that he was facing another all-nighter. It didn’t matter that his apartment’s heater was on the fritz again, or that he slipped on that same icy patch behind the grocery store and spilled a week’s worth of peanut butter all over the parking lot, or that Chomper chewed up yet another pair of shoes. It didn’t matter because he could count the hours before he’d see Bruce again, and they could laugh about the _simply awful_ day Clark had suffered through.

He found himself paying special attention to odd things, _this_ joke that might make Bruce laugh, or _that_ event Bruce might be interested in going to, or _this_ bottle of wine that Bruce might like.

He’d steadfastly refused the expensive gifts Bruce wanted to give him. _No_ he didn’t want a Vacheron watch that cost more than a year’s salary. _No,_ he didn’t want to update his phone to a new, sleeker model. _No,_ he had no use for an Armani coat, his old one would suffice. _Good Lord no,_ don’t get him a motorcycle, those things are dangerous! (Mom didn’t raise a gold-digger, no sir.)

But when Bruce presented him with a pair of sinfully soft Italian leather gloves with a sheepish, “Your hands are always cold when I’m not around to hold them,” he didn’t have it in him to say no. They were light and thin, but so very warm when Bruce slid them on for him. They walked hand-in-hand to a lovely spot overlooking the bay and Bruce drew him close, whispering, “Happy Valentine’s Day.”

“I… sorry I didn’t get you anything,” Clark mumbled, blushing.

“You can give me this,” said Bruce.

And then they were kissing for the first time, _really_ kissing, and Bruce’s mouth was gentle and possessive against his, and the sun was just setting over the water, rosy gold and cotton-candy pink. His knees felt weak, but Bruce’s arms were circled around his waist for support and he was in no danger of falling, nothing in the world could hurt him, because they were _kissing_ for the first time, almost exactly one month from their first date (Giuseppe’s not Repartee, get it right, Bruce), and it was _perfect_.

X

At his most hypocritical, Bruce resented the roles that people played. Everyone was an actor. Everyone spoke from a script and not even an original one, the same tired lines, rehashed and remade.

The intelligent, motivated woman who played the part of an acid-tongued, ball-busting career female: _I guess your paycheck’s the only big thing in your pocket, huh?_ The insecure young man who exaggerated his charm and spoke in glib Wall Street clichés. The weary mother who smiled a little too tightly and always _made the best out of a bad situation_. The schoolyard bully. Say what you would about Arkham’s criminally insane, but at least their dialogue was original.

Even Alfred, his closest remaining friend, hid love, faithfulness, and heartbreaking concern under a sarcastic, stoic, stiff-upper-lip veneer. (He thought, correctly, that Batman had no use for sentimental limpness and hand-wringing.)

Everyone except Clark. Clark played no roles. He wore no mask. He needed no special key to open him up. He was always open and always warm. An angry Clark was an angry Clark, red-faced and shouting, without the need to wrap it up in sarcasm, clever humor, or passive-aggressive layers. Batman knew that firsthand. (Fanta can, Clark? Really?)

Bruce had pegged him as a naïve idealist at first, all fluff and no substance, but he found out quickly enough that there was a keen intelligence lurking beneath. But Clark was like a very fat, well-tamed porcupine. He never used his quills as weapons. But cuddle him closely enough, and you’d get pricked at unexpected moments, except he drew laughter and surprise instead of blood.

Bruce took to Clark like a longtime heroin addict took to wholesome food and water. He wasn’t used to purity. He wasn’t used to _goodness_.

When Clark had revealed that his so-called _chastity belt_ was something so benign and stupid as Superman boxers, Bruce’s laughter had been bitter and self-deprecating, because he had thought, in a triumphant _I was right_ moment, that of _course_ there was some kind of fetish hidden beneath those baggy clothes. No one was that wholesome without some sort of secret shame. It wasn’t until Clark fluttered around him with some pathetic attempt at a Heimlich, all innocent and agitated, that Bruce’s laughter turned to genuine delight.

He’d seen the inside of Clark’s apartment, that one time he’d been invited over for a homemade dinner of chicken casserole. There’d been posters of cartoon cats with speech bubbles of comforting phrases, along with sticky notes of appointment dates and grocery lists, and an impressive magnet collection. Framed pictures of his mother adorned his desk. Bruce didn’t know if he was relieved or horrified to find no blood-streaked clothes, no drugs, no body parts pickling in jars. Clark was… just Clark. 

Sometime between the second and third date, Alfred had handed him a full dossier on Just Clark.

“Quite an intriguing past, though nothing that would interest you, since there’s nothing criminal. Quite an upstanding citizen, on all counts. Sends part of each paycheck home to his mother…” Alfred trailed off when Bruce closed the file abruptly.

“You know, Alfred,” he said with a wry smile, “maybe part of the fun is figuring things out as we go. Shred this, won’t you?”

And now he held Clark in his arms, framed in gold and pink against the sunset, mouth warm and virginal beneath his own, and felt an aching sadness that he didn’t know Clark years before, that he had to go through much life without Just Clark. And that’s when he knew, with mounting horror, that he’d _fallen_. He pulled back from the kiss, sluggishly startled, like someone who had been sipping all night but only just realized, too late, that he was way drunker than he’d planned to be: _oh crap, when did I get hammered? I can’t even walk straight_ , _I think I’m going to be sick_.

Clark was looking up at him, eyes dazed and brow folding over in concern, mouth slightly open and wet: _is there something wrong?_

He wanted to take those glasses off, whisper _there, now I can see you_ , and then kiss him again. He wanted to murmur, _open your mouth for me, Clark, let me taste you, please_ , and then slip his tongue between tentatively parted lips. He wanted to slide a hand between the folds of that age-worn jacket and feel Clark’s beating heart. He wanted to…

“I have to go,” Bruce whispered, and pulled away.

 

X

 

It was perfect, and then it wasn’t. It was pure bliss, until it was gone. Like so many things in Clark’s life, it was sweet, until it went sour.

Dad was always there for him, until he wasn’t. The farm had always been secure, until the debts piled up and it wasn’t. He had always loved it at home and never thought about leaving, until he reached 18 and just _couldn’t_ bear it anymore. Young and proud and on his own for the first time, he had thought himself invincible, until Kabul happened, and he found that that he really, _really_ wasn’t (he still had nightmares about it sometimes).

Bruce… Bruce was there, Bruce was _his..._ until he wasn’t.

After that perfect Valentine’s Day, the sweet, pointless texts and calls ( _what are you doing right this minute? I’m shopping for lettuce, did you know there’s three kinds? I’m getting a haircut, I miss you, tell me how much you miss me..._ )  just… stopped. Requests to meet up were politely and coldly rebuffed. He saw neither hide nor hair of Bruce Wayne for a week.

One agonizing week, during which he’d wondered and wondered what he’d done wrong. Was it the stumbling, unsophisticated way he talked? His lack of knowledge about the high arts? Was it that he kept refusing Bruce’s offerings of better clothes, better phone, better _everything_? Maybe that was what Bruce expected from him, to be remade into something glamorous and expensive, something _worthy_. But… this is who he was. And Bruce had _liked_ that… hadn’t he?

He spent one week keeping his head down and working as mechanically and efficiently as a morose robot, so that even Perry, who saw no more “goofy grins” to chastise Clark about, waved him into his office and gave him a gruff, “You ok, Smallville?” He fluttered three crisp white printouts at Clark, still hot from the machine. “Your last coupla stories were a little… lacking in passion.”

“I thought you wanted me to take the rose tint out of my lenses, Perry.”

“I did. But are you _ok_?”

“Just fine, Perry. Just fine.”

Then, when he’d lost hope of hearing word from Bruce, word suddenly came in a single text message: _Charity gala at Grand Lux, black tie, 7pm. Don’t be late._ It was as cold and curt as a court summons, arriving a scant hour and half before 7pm. No _would you like to,_ or _please meet me_. Just: _Don’t be late_.

Clark had a bad cold. Congestion muffled his face and throat like one of Mom’s scarves. He was tired and sore and had just heated up a saucepan of soup, which he’d planned to sip from his fat Garfield mug in front of the TV before taking an early night.

_I’m sick,_ he texted back. _Could I skip out?_

He waited five, ten minutes, and there was no response. The soup boiled and bubbled. He turned off the gas and went to wrap himself in a knitted throw, confused and achy. He’d never been invited to one of Bruce’s public events before. Was this Bruce’s way of saying that he was proud of Clark, that Clark was worthy of being shown off?

Half an hour later, and his phone remained stubbornly silent. He sighed, popped a NyQuil, and thought he felt a little better.

The steam from the shower cleared his lungs a little and he scrubbed vigorously with drugstore-brand soap and shampoo, telling himself that he was energetic. He picked out Dad’s best Sunday suit from the closet and unwrapped it reverently from its crinkled plastic. It was a little too tight across the shoulders, a little long in the waist, but he’d always loved it. He slung his old, olive green jacket over it, pulled on the gloves Bruce had gotten him, and headed out at 6:30pm.

There was a sign propped up next to the flung-open entrance of the Grand Lux: CHARITY GALA AND BALL and beneath it: HOSTED BY THE WAYNE FOUNDATION.

There was a small crowd filing in before him in a cloud of perfume and cultured whispers. Cuff-linked wrists presented creamy invitation cards to the man at the door, who nodded and smiled as if the hotel was his own private club, and greeted some of the guests by name.

“Your invitation, sir?” said the man, giving Clark and his shabby coat a half-lidded once-over.

“Uh… Bruce… Mr. Wayne texted me?”

To his mortification, the tuxedoed man actually took out a pair of reading glasses and bent to examine a long guest list, while better-dressed people bunched up behind him like water at a dam.

“Oh,” said the man after a humiliatingly long search, pushed his glasses back into his pocket, and flicked two gloved fingers towards the hotel ballroom like he was shooing away a pet. _Come in, come in, hurry up._

Clark checked his coat and took a glass of champagne, the fizz tickling his nose as he sipped, and tried to mingle while looking for Bruce. He felt naked without his press pass. Like he had no business being here. He felt like an animal that had been tranquilized, snatched away from his natural environment of microwaved leftovers and television reruns, then dropped, sleepy and amazed, into a zoo of crystal chandeliers, full-length dresses, and laughing, elegant voices that hushed as he passed by.

Where was Bruce?

He sipped champagne and  winced at the way it stung his sore throat. He smiled and nodded at well-dressed strangers who either ignored him or smiled halfheartedly back, confusedly: _who are you, again?_

He shuffled his way awkwardly around the ballroom, maneuvering himself past foie gras and shrimp-bearing servers, occasionally wiping his nose down with a crinkled tissue, until _there he was_ , the CEO and owner of the Wayne Foundation himself, the man that Clark had the audacity to think was _his_.

Bruce was smiling, being photographed, with each arm around a beautiful, slinky woman.

Clark stood, ten paces away, snotty tissue in hand, and found himself frozen to the core. So this was Bruce Wayne in his natural habitat. Head flung back in roguish laughter, eyes sneaking a peak down the dress of the lady on his right, hands wandering just a hair too low on slim, hourglass waists. Was this man actually the same one that ate pizza with Clark, the same one that didn’t even kiss him on the cheek until the second date?

Someone gave him a friendly bump on the elbow, jarring him from his thoughts. “Hey, Smallville! Didn’t think I’d run into you here.”

“Jimmy?” he said startled.

“Yeah, man,” said Jimmy Olsen, holding up a camera. “Pretty neat scene, isn’t it? Perry thought he’d put me on something light and easy, after my disability leave. But to tell you the truth, this place kinda creeps me out. It’s all those tuxedos, man, they remind me of the pen… the peng…. the p-…”

“The penguins?” Clark suggested.

“Gah, I gotta get some air!” Jimmy shoved the camera into Clark’s hands. “Get some shots for me, will ya?”

Jimmy’s outburst and subsequent exit had the unintended effect of drawing people’s attention to where Clark now stood, clumsily balancing a camera and a champagne flute in his hands like a voyeur caught in the act. It caught Bruce’s attention too.

_“Claarrk_ ,” Bruce drawled in an exaggeratedly surprised voice, eyebrows going up. “Fancy seeing you here.” He managed to beckon Clark closer without removing either hand from the hips of the women flanking him. One was wearing champagne satin, the other sequined gold. They were like oversized gleaming trophies, glossy and blonde and _perfect_ in every way that Clark could never hope to be. They _matched_ Bruce.

Like a marionette on strings, he shuffled over on dead feet and attempted a scratchy, “Hi, Bruce,” and a weak smile.

“I thought we already had someone from the _Planet_ taking pictures,” Bruce said, confusion wrinkling his brows. “What are you doing here, again?”

Clark gritted his teeth and said, “You invited me here, remember?”

“Ohhh, right. Hah, sorry, sometimes I forget when I send group texts. S’good to see you.”

“… Likewise.”

“Ann, Natasha, this is my friend Clark.”

_My friend Clark_. He’d heard Bruce say a monosyllabic _Hey_ with more warmth than that string of words, _myfriendClark_.

“… Pleased to meet you.”

“Oh, he’s adorable,” said Ann, the champagne blond.

“He’s cute,” said Natasha, the sequined blond.

Matching coral-lipped smiles.

“Ann here is an _architect,_ ” Bruce explains. “She designs _gardens_ and _parks_. Robinson Park was partly her work, you know. Natasha is the _prima ballerina_ from the Moscow City Ballet.” 

Clark didn’t know whether to feel better or worse that they weren’t simply Floozy #1 and Floozy #2.

“I’m a journalist,” he offered lamely.

“Oh, that’s _fantastic_ ,” gushed Ann. “I wonder, are you acquainted with Bob from the Gotham Free Press, and Carl from…”

She rattled off a list of Pulitzer-winning names and Very Important People that she was probably brunch buddies with. Clark, shame-faced, only knew a few of them.

“And where did you study journalism, sweetheart?” Natasha wanted to know. “Drake? Northwestern?”

“I… Uh…” Clark couldn’t manage to tell her that he’d only done two months of community college to appease his father’s last wish, before getting fed up and enlisting.

He looked at Bruce for help, but all he got was a lazy, half-interested smile, leaving Clark to stand there awkwardly and feel more and more aware of his red, chapped face and his ill-fitting, outdated suit, as Ann stifled a yawn and Natasha giggled at something Bruce whispered into her ear.

Their differences (golf and baseball, scotch and beer) had always thrilled him, made him feel that life with Bruce was an adventure to be lived, but now...

“Smile, please,” he said abruptly, when he could bear it no longer, and snapped a picture of Bruce and his golden women, and managed a clogged-up “Goodbye, Bruce,” before turning on his heel and leaving, walking away from a roomful of people far more interesting, far more attractive, and just far _better_ than him.

“Clark, wait!” he heard behind him, but he didn’t stop until he was through the paneled doors, through the lobby and snatching his coat from the rack, out on the street, and down into the metro station. The ride home was miserable as public transportation always was. There was a young couple making out against the sliding doors all the way home, their bodies thumping in rhythm with the train. There was an old couple sitting hand-in-hand, smiling and saying nothing. Clark sneezed and felt sick to his stomach.

He started ripping off his suit as soon as he crossed into his apartment, scattering jacket, shirt, pants, and tie until he was left in t’shirt and boxers, to collapse in a heap on his couch. He coughed miserably into the crook of his elbow, and wished he had the energy to work up a good cry.

After a long moment of hesitation, he dialed Lois.

“Lane here.”

“Lois, it’s me.”

“What is it, Smallville?”

“Could you come over?”

A tired groan. “Clark, I just got off a six-hour flight. I’m _working_.”

“… Please?”   

“What happened?” she sounded worried now.

“Nothing, nothing. I just…”

He heard her sigh, heard the sound of a laptop snapping shut, a jangle of keys and pocket change as she swung her coat around her shoulders. “I’m coming.” And then she hung up.

He closed his eyes, and couldn’t help seeing the image of Bruce dipping his smiling face down towards Ann’s perfumed cleavage, his hand cupping Natasha’s rear, eliciting a surprised squeal of laughter. How could he have been so blind?

The words _reputation_ , _playboy_ , and _most eligible bachelor_ flashed through his head.

He replayed his relationship with Bruce with horrifying new clarity. Was a seemingly sweet “I had a great time tonight” from Bruce actually an invitation to go to bed? Had he offended Bruce by not picking up on it? Was a hand on his shoulder, a touch on his elbow, a kiss on his knuckles, signs that he should have responded to? How? With what?

Simply put, he didn’t know what to do.

Other than two kisses from girls he thought were far out of his league in high school, and that embarrassing incident with Lois, he’d never been intimate with anyone. (After two months of chaste dating, she’d crawled into his lap during Baseball and Beer night, sultry and warm and steadily ignoring his increasingly panicked “Lois, what are you _doing?_ ” only to storm out in a huff when she touched him _there_ and found him limp. She’d forgiven him since.)

His own parents had done nothing more than kiss cheeks and hold hands before the wedding, their first _real_ kiss performed at the altar. In the military, he had been shocked by the macho culture of bar hookups and visits to strip clubs, even though most of the guys had girlfriends back at home.

“Put out or get out,” was his bunkmate’s mantra back in Lackland. The memory of that bawdy cackle, and the answering whoop from two beds over, made him curl up in misery.

Coming to Metropolis, he’d thought he’d eventually adjust to the foreign concept of sex as a prerequisite to marriage, instead of the other way around. He never adjusted, only developed a tentative tolerance to it that made him bury himself behind scarf and glasses and slouching shoulders whenever someone got too close.

He always feared that there was something deeply wrong with him, that there was some stunted part of him that never grew up right, a _lack_ that prevented him from falling into drunken one-night stands, from casual sex and easy pleasure. From loving Lois the way she wanted him to.

And Bruce… he had been _comfortable_ with Bruce. He had treasured each kiss. He thought Bruce didn’t mind going slow. He’d even longed for more, looked forward to the day that he’d be _ready_ for more. How stupid and selfish was he, to think that Bruce wanted to wait? To think that he, who always waffled between fear and desire like an uncooperative child that couldn’t decide between two brands of cereal, would ever be worth waiting for?

He didn’t realized that he’d drifted off into a fitful nap until Lois was kneeling by the couch and gently shaking him awake.

“Are you ok?” she demanded, eyes full of concern.

“What’s wrong with me, Lois?” was the first thing he said, his voice coming out in a thin, muffled wail.

And then her arms were around him, her fingers in his hair, and she was murmuring, “Nothing at all, sweetheart, nothing at all. Don’t apologize for who you are.”

_Don’t apologize for who you are_ , was what she always said, and it somehow made him feel worse, because it implied that there _was_ something to apologize for, and that the refusal was nothing more than stubborn defiance.

He didn’t realize he was picking at the ring of scar tissue on his thigh until she grabbed his hand and moved it firmly away.

“Stop it,” she said insistently. “Now, tell me what happened.”

“I lost him, Lo,” he whispered. “But the thing is… I don’t think I even had him in the first place.”

And then everything was spilling out. He told her about Bruce and their first date ( _Oh my God, Bruce Wayne is your sugar daddy?_ ), how good he thought they’d been together, and that perfect Valentine’s day, and then the distance, the coldness, culminating in a humiliating night.

She stopped him with a pinch when he started getting into the self-pitying stuff.

“Fuck ‘em,” she said shortly. She mimed picking up a piece of paper, tearing it up, crumpling it into a ball, and tossing it away, with the practiced ease of someone who’d performed the same motions before. “He doesn’t deserve you, and he’s not for you. Forget him. Move on.”

Clark stared at her for a moment, dumbfounded, and smiled. “Lo…”

“Fuck him, his money, and his fancy cars.”

“Don’t forget the yacht.”

“Fuck his yacht,” she said, grinning.

Clark laughed and it felt good, until it turned into a cough.

They sat in silence for a while, Lois kicking her shoes off and settling on the floor, cross-legged, the way she used to when they dated. She tilted her head until her neck cricked, baring her nape to him. He touched the flimsy line of the gold chain that hung there, tracing it with his fingertip, hugging her to him briefly with his other arm.

“Do you ever hate me?” he whispered. “That it didn’t work out between us?” He wondered if she ever wrote his name on an imaginary piece of paper, ripped it up, and then threw it out.

“I wanted to,” she said, after a moment. “But I never could, in the end. You never mean to hurt anyone. You’re just… you.”

She stood abruptly, sliding out of his arms like water. “Did you eat yet?” she asked, padding her way into his kitchen.

“No,” he groaned, wishing he’d at least swiped a few foie gras lollipops from the party. His stomach growled, and he was pretty sure he wasn’t supposed to take his cold medication on an empty stomach.

“There’s some soup on the stove,” she called, sticking her head back into the living room. “Do you want me to heat it up?”

“Yes please.”

“You look like you could use a stiff PB&J. Do you want a PB&J?”

“I really do.”

“Ok, I’ll make one.”

“Can you deep-fry it?”

She looked down at her silk blouse, then back up at him with an are-you-kidding-me look. “I’ll _toast_ it,” she said, and flicked out of sight.

“Grilled with butter?” he called out hopefully.

“Fine, _fine_. The things I do for you, Smallville.”

He turned his face to the back of the couch, feeling drained but slightly less miserable. It wasn’t as easy as Lois made it sound, of course, but it also wasn’t _that_ bad. He wouldn’t let it be. He hugged a throw pillow to his chest, determined not to let it be.

He heard footsteps approaching the couch and mumbled into the pillow, “Can I have a strawberry YooHoo too?”

“How about champagne?” said a voice that was decidedly _not_ Lois.

Clark jumped up as if burned.

Bruce stood over him in a gray winter coat, with a dripping bottle of Dom Perignon in his hand.

He stared, slack-jawed. “When did you…?”

“The door was unlocked,” said Bruce, gesturing awkwardly. “Anyone could come in.”

“Oh, like you?”

He regretted the sharpness in his voice almost immediately, but Bruce didn’t bristle in defense, only sighed and put the perspiring bottle on the coffee table with a sticky-sounding _thunk_. He was the outsider now, a beautifully exotic bird plucked from its natural habitat and plunked unceremoniously into Clark’s threadbare living room, bringing with him the scent of Chanel No. 5, smoky rain, and an obscenely expensive bottle of champagne.

“May I?” he asked tiredly, waving his hand at the adjacent recliner.

“Yeah, go ahead,” said Clark, then muffled a cough in his elbow.

Bruce sat, slumping backwards and rubbing his salt and pepper temples. Clark blinked. For a second, Bruce Wayne looked _old_. Was he really the same vivacious, carefree guy from the gala?

“I… I wanted to say…”

“Don’t,” said Clark, shaking his head. Which made him dizzy, so he laid back down, looking horizontally up at Bruce. “Please don’t say anything. I know exactly what you’ll tell me.”

Clark sighed and closed his eyes briefly. “I know I’m not… your usual type. I know I don’t deserve you. You were always going to get tired of me and let’s face it, there’s nothing really great about me to keep you from leaving. I’m just… me. It’s ok to tell me that. I…”

There was a stricken look on Bruce’s face as he, unbelievably, slid down from the chair to his knees and crawled over to slump down by the couch. He took Clark’s hand and held on like a lifeline, so hard it almost hurt.

“Listen to me,” Bruce said fiercely. “ _I’m_ the one who doesn’t deserve you. _You’re_ the one too good for me.”

Clark shook his head, confused. “But I thought…”

“I was being an idiot and a fake. Throw me out if you want to, but please, please believe me when I say that the person you saw earlier tonight was _not_ me. That’s _wasn’t_ real.” He touched Clark’s cheek, pressed Clark’s hand against his heart. “ _This_ is real. The me that _you_ know is real.”

And Clark knew, foolishly, stupidly, that he had already forgiven this man, even before the question was out of Bruce’s mouth.

“I promise I won’t ever shut you out again. I hurt you, and I’m _sorry_. Please forgive me?”

And how could he not, when he’d already made the decision, that he would never say no to Bruce? “I forgive you,” he said, and there was a brief flash of elation over Bruce’s face before he was leaning closer. 

“Don’t kiss me,” Clark warned. “I’m sick.”

“I don’t care,” and then Bruce’s lips were on his and it was so, so good…

“Ahem.” He looked up to see Lois coming in from the kitchen, a sandwich on a plate in one hand and a Chinese takeout box she’d swiped from his fridge. “Am I interrupting something?”

“Ah… Lois, this is…”

“Mr. Wayne. I know.”

“Miss Lane,” said Bruce, nodding at her.

She set the sandwich down next to the Dom Perignon and looked at the both of them with narrowed eyes. “Should I leave you two alone?”

Bruce gave Clark a look as if to say _it’s up to you_. _I can stay or go._

“Um…”

“Let me rephrase that,” said Lois, speaking directly to Clark as if Bruce wasn’t there. “Are you going to be ok if I leave you alone with him?”

“Yes.”

“ _Sure?_ ”

“Yes, I’m sure. Thank you, Lois.”

She gave them one last look, gathered up her shoes, and left. She took Clark’s takeout with her.

“Don’t you have a party to get back to?” wondered Clark, when the door had snapped shut.

Bruce shook his head. “I’m fine right here,” he said, touching Clark’s face and smiling, then adding apologetically, “Can I take you out or something…?”

Clark shivered, and Bruce immediately unbuttoned  his coat and draped it over him like a blanket. It engulfed him in warm cocoon that smelled like Bruce.

“I’d rather stay in,” Clark said sleepily.

They drank champagne from mugs and made more sandwiches, and at them with lukewarm soup. They watched television with Clark curled up against Bruce, who took his jacket, tie, and shoes off to recline in a waistcoat and untucked shirt. And even though there was only a coat and Clark’s t-shirt and boxers between them, he didn’t feel pressured to do anything other than snuggle into Bruce’s warmth, sighing comfortably around the rim of his Garfield mug.

It wasn’t perfect. Perfect had come and gone, like a too-short summer. But this… this was _good_.

 

X

 

_Present Day_

 

“Ma’am, you’re not allowed to go in there.”

Lois twisted away from the gloved hand that had tried to restrain her. She flashed her press pass. “I’m with _Daily Planet_. I have a right to be here.”

In the moment that the young cop took to consider her questionable authority, squinting at the plastic photo, she pushed past him into Bruce Wayne’s hospital room.

“Ma’am…”

“All I need is a quote from him. Call the GCPD headquarters. The Commissioner knows I’m here.”

A lie, but she also knew he wouldn’t call.

Bruce Wayne was lying on his back on an uncomfortable foam mattress, cuffed to the bed supports by the wrists and strapped down by his torso, with the type of leather restraints that she’d thought had gone out of use with electroshock therapy. He turned at the click of her heels and the haunted look on his face was immediately replaced with a smarmy smile.

“Lois Lane,” he drawled. “Aren’t you a sight for sore eyes.”

“Bruce,” she greeted. “What the hell happened?”

He made an aborted shrugging motion. “It all happened so fast, I can barely remember.”

“Tell me what you do remember.”

“Sure thing. But before I do, c’mere, huh? They’ve got me trussed up like a Christmas turkey and boy, there’s no worse feeling than when you’ve got an itch and can’t scratch. Get my nose for me, won’t you?”

She took two steps closer, felt her hip touch the edge of the bed. She bent over him, but instead of scratching his nose, she brushed the bangs off his forehead, revealing a puckered burn mark.

“That looks bad.”

“Eh, nothing a little plastic surgery can’t fix.”

“At least you can’t see it under the cowl.”

It was like a shutter slamming shut, the way his eyes went cold. She watched the smarmy look slide off his face, like a wobbly, oversweet dessert slides off a plate.

“Good,” she said, nodding at his expression as if she’d found what she looked for. “You’re not going to insult my intelligence by pretending to deny it.”

She straightened up and turned away to look at the television on the wall, knowing without checking that he would have swiped her phone and keys from her pocket when she’d been bent over him. 

The maroon-suited reporter on the screen was one she was unfamiliar with, a Gotham woman reporting Gotham news.

“Does _he_ know?” came Bruce’s voice with a hint of Batman’s growl.

She shrugged without turning. “If I was able to figure it out, then I’m sure he at least suspected. Don’t let the goofy farmboy routine fool you. He’s damned sharp when he wants to be. But, that being said, he’s also pretty blind to what he doesn’t want to see.” 

_Still no definite answers on the Joker Kidnapping. Gotham police have tracked two more locations yesterday, but both turned out to be false leads. Booby traps were found…_

“He proposed to me once, you know,” she said hollowly, over the sound of creaking leather, Bruce’s minute struggles. “After two months of dating, I waited and waited for him to make a move on me, but he never did. So, I made a move on him.” She still remembered her embarrassment, which quickly turned to anger, Clark’s pale-faced stuttering, pleading with her as she stormed out. “He went down on one knee the next day and asked me to marry him. Said he didn’t have enough money for a ring, but he would save up for it.” She unconsciously touched the gold pendant that rested coldly in the hollow of her neck. “He didn’t really _love_ me, you know. Not like he loves you. But there he was, down on the ground, asking me to be his wife because he thought it was the right thing to do, that he was somehow protecting my honor. I hated him for it.”

Or she’d tried to, at least. She remembered trying to storm off again, and he was trying to get up to follow her, but he was slipping over the ice on the ground, sprawling like an idiot, and she’d grabbed him, tried to help him up, and they’d both gone down in a heap, and they were laughing and crying at the same time, and how could she bear to hate him then?

The reporter paused mid-sentence, her hand to her ear. _I’ve… just been told that another video has been received by the GCPD. It’s not currently released to the public but I’m being told that the imagery is… disturbing._

“ _Help_ me,” Bruce ground out, pulling against his restraints. 

She turned and sauntered past him, to the metal tray nearby that was set up with syringes and little glass chemical bottles. “Strychnine,” she intoned, picking one up to read the label, then set it down with a click. “Nitrous. Sodium Pentothal. Hydrogen cyanide.” Bang, bang, bang, each bottle hit the tray like little gunshots. “You know, Bruce, I don’t think they’re keeping you here for your health.”

She leaned over him, a hand pressing down on his shoulder. The other one idly twirling a syringe, like a pen. “Tell me the truth,” she said coldly. “Are _you_ the reason he was taken?”

“I don’t _know_ ,” he hissed, glaring up at her. “ _Help_ me, and I’ll find out. I’ll find _him_.”

Her hand tightened on the syringe briefly, before she let it drop. “Do you promise you’ll find him?”

“I _swear_ it.”

She looked back at the TV set, saw a photo of Clark emblazoned across the screen, along with a sans-serif command to those watching: Keep on the lookout for this man, call the police, report any suspicious activity. It was an almost Clockwork Orange-like torture they’d inflicted on Bruce, tying him down and forcing him to watch yet leaving him unable to do anything. 

“Tell me what I need to do.”

“Distract the two by the door. Just… distract them. I don’t even need a minute.”

“Ok.”

She left Bruce and walked up to the two policemen by the door, offhandedly memorizing their badge numbers and names.  She was sure they were either fake cops, or real cops that had been bought.

“Can you tell me what this man is being charged with?” she asked pleasantly, opening up her notepad and coming around to stand against the opposite wall so that their backs would be turned to Bruce.

“We’re not at liberty to say, Ma’am.”

She looked down at her notes to scribble meaninglessly, _not at liberty to say_. By the time she looked back up, Bruce’s bed was empty and the window was swaying open in the wind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much for reading!!!! As always, feedback greatly appreciated!!!!


	6. Memory

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clark is trapped in a dark place and keeps his memories close.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please heed the above warning tags for this chapter. If anything in the tags disturbs or upsets you, THIS IS THE CHAPTER TO SKIP, without any worry of losing track of the story. Also, no copyright infringement intended, no profits made.

Clark groaned through gritted teeth as the straight razor scraped harshly against the underside of his chin, leaving behind a quarter-sized patch of raw skin.

“There, there,” crooned the Joker, one bony hand fisted in his hair, the other hand plying the razor across his face and jaw. “Almost done.”

The shaving had gone on for the better part of an hour, the Joker using the blade on him as if he were a wooden block to be carved, instead of flesh and blood. There were crisscrossing red lines oozing sluggishly across his chest, neck, and groin, peeking out under his arms, slashing across his thighs, shallow but stinging.

Clark struggled on instinct as Joker slapped a handful of stinging soap against his cheek. “Hold still,” chided the clown, deliberately letting the razor slip and nicking the corner of his lip. “I thought you soldier boys were supposed to be well-groomed. Didn’t they teach you that back in Basic?”

A rough towel swiped across his face. Joker stood back to admire his work, turning Clark’s chin to the bare-bulb light. “There. Now I can see you.” The words made him shiver in revulsion.

“He’s much handsomer now, Mr. J,” Harley chimed in like a sycophantic bell. She sat cross-legged on the warehouse floor in front of a plugged-in hotplate. A can of soup sat atop it, bubbling with the acid smell of tomato.

It brought back memories of a night he and Bruce spent in the refuge of Wayne Manor and ate soup from cans. A storm had raged outside, a last gasp of fury from a dying winter. Them, trapped inside the ruins of Bruce’s childhood home with no electricity or gas. They built a roaring fire in the parlor, found dusty cans of barely-expired soup and beans in the pantry that Alfred still occasionally stocked, stripped off the labels, and cooked them directly in the flames with tongs. Wrapped themselves in old blankets and curled together for warmth, damp skin against damp skin, kissing slow and lazy, waiting for the dawn yet wishing it would stay away for just a few more hours.

Bruce… _Oh, Bruce_ …

 “Not as handsome as you, of course,” chirped Harley, giving her soup a stir with one finger and sucking on it. The savory-sour smell of soup mingled with the blandness of soap. Clark thought he was going to be sick.

“Of course not. Who is?” Joker wiped down the straight razor and tossed the towel aside. Made a naughty-naughty gesture at Clark with the blade. “You know, soldier, none of the others gave me as much trouble with the shaving. Dear Lizzie just took it all in Stride.” He threw his head back and cackled.

“Well, we did work her over a bit before that,” said Harley. “It was towards the end, anyway. I think she just… gave up.”

“Right, right.” Joker looked over Clark’s bowed, naked form. Ran a hand down his back gently, and said almost reassuringly, “Baby, we’re not even _close_ to the end with you.”

Clark glanced at Harley with a bruised eye. Tried to find any pity in that painted face, any womanly remorse for having helped the deranged clown torture and murder a girl that was barely in her twenties. She leaned over and studied the soup can’s sputtering innards and announced cheerfully, “Dinner’s ready!”

Joker ignored her. Went to click on the ever-present video camera and darted back to stand behind Clark. Nudge-kicked at him to sit up straight.

“Your adoring audience awaits,” he breathed excitedly in Clark’s ear. Then growled and grabbed a handful of hair at the crown of Clark’s head, shaking him, when he remained mute. “ _Say it_ ,” he hissed. “Just like we practiced. Do it, and you get a half glass of water. Aspirin too, if you throw in a joke.”

It was a classic torture technique. Deal out pain and humiliation, make someone feel less than human, then offer miniscule “rewards” for cooperating, little tidbits like water or food or a shower, which would seem like heaven for someone on the receiving end.

“ _My name is Clark Kent_ …” coaxed the Joker.

“My name is Clark Kent,” croaked Clark.

“And…?”

“My name is…” Clark coughed. His throat was dry. It felt like he had swallowed sand. “… Clark Kent. And I…” He took in a careful gulp of air, his lungs burning. His entire body was a mess of aggravated wounds. The newer wounds were a fresh splash of hurt. The older ones had numbed beyond pain, dulling and scabbing over into discomfort. His lips were peeling with dryness. The thought of water almost pained him.

“My name is…”

“Come on, come on,” said the Joker. He kissed Clark’s shoulder, then the side of his face, his scarred lips scratchy against bare skin. “Mr. B would _so_ happy to hear that you’re alive. Tell him how much you’ve missed him, in _dollars_.”

The ring, still caked with blood and bile, glinted dully on his hand. _Let’s dream big together. Love – B._ The inscription burned on his finger like a brand, _Love_ flaring up like a red-hot flame. The ransom demand stuck to his tongue.

“Get _on_ with it, soldier boy,” growled the Joker, reaching around Clark to roughly pinch a nipple.

Clark flinched and clenched his jaw. “Don’t call me that,”  he said lowly.

“What did you say?”

“I said, don’t call me that,” said Clark, turning his head to glare defiantly at the Joker. “I was Air Force, not Army. It’s Airman, you _jumped up circus freak_.”

Abandoning his cowed posture, he slammed his elbow backwards into the Joker’s gut. The clown exhaled explosively and doubled over. Clark met his face on the way down with a right hook.

“ _No!_ ” Harley Quinn shrieked, jumping up and knocking over tomato soup to spill across the floor like blood. She came for him with a kick. He saw it coming, lurched to the side, grabbed her ankle mid-kick, and rotated it just enough so that her momentum sent her sprawling. (Even now, he wouldn’t hit a girl if he could help it.)

“My name is Clark Kent!” he said into the camera, just as his saved-up strength left him and the two armed men keeping guard at the loading dock darted over to pin him down. “They have me in a warehouse, old industrial park, somewhere north of Newton Harbor,” he rattled off, remembering the distant sound of the 5 o’clock ferry and the smell of water. He propped himself up on his elbows, shaking with the effort. “At least two armed men, AK-47’s and sidearms – _ungh_!”

One put him in a chokehold while the other one punched him in the stomach, then again in the face, gloved fist cracking against cheekbone and splitting skin. He saw stars and then, for a moment, darkness.

When he came to a second later, his attacker was clutching a bleeding arm and Joker had the bloody razor in his hand.

“I told you, not the face,” Joker said, with a cheerful yet dangerous tone in his voice. He wiped the blade on his henchman’s sleeve. “Now, go stand in the corner and think about what you’ve done.”

It was a testament to Joker’s dangerous insanity when the man, scowling and clutching his arm, actually did what he was told.

Done with discipline, Joker turned to Clark, who hung limply in the other henchman’s grip. “That was rude.” He raised the razor. A flash of metal, and Clark, instinctively closing his eyes, felt a burning diagonal slash down his face. He gasped as blood dripped to the floor. “Croc, teach him some manners, wontcha?”

The one holding him up dropped him and quickly backed away, just as the floor started shaking with a deep, uneven gait.

“No…” Clark gasped weakly.  

The monster called Croc emerged from the shadows in his full scaly, nude, enormous glory.

“Don’t…”

He grinned as he came up to Clark at a prowl, tongue darting out to lick at curled lips, hand idly stroking an already-rising cock.

Clark struggled to his knees, tried a run for the rolling gate at the end of the loading dock.

A hand around his calf and a hard jerk put a quick stop to that, sent him sprawling ungracefully on the floor. He was flipped over onto his back, getting a full view of Croc’s body looming over him. Boulder-like muscles, legs the size of tree trunks, and between them, a mammoth cock that was bobbing in the air as he lowered himself to straddle Clark.

A razor-toothed muzzle pressed against Clark’s neck, inhaling his scent. “Ohhh, I’ve been waiting for this.”

“Get off, don’t touch me, _don’t…!_ ”

His hands pushed fruitlessly at Croc’s biceps, until his wrists were caught and pinned together above his head in one meaty fist. A boulder of a knee was shoved between his thighs until his legs parted, a hand gripping him behind his knee and lifting up so that his hips barely touched the floor, exposing his sex and the secret, private cleft between his buttocks that so few people in the world had been allowed to touch.

“Are you a virgin?” Croc huffed in his ear. A raspy tongue licked the side of his face, then diagonally across it along the razor’s cut, making Clark gasp as a memory came, unbidden.

Bruce, on the couch next to him, a warm hand on his knee. _Never? Not even once?_

_N-no. I’ve never… not with anyone._

Bruce, lifting his glasses off, _there, now I can see you._ Bruce, looking into his eyes like he was something to be treasured, something precious to be taken care of. _You know I would never pressure you to do anything you don’t want to, right?_

He found himself blinking back tears as Croc grabbed a buttock with an obscene smacking sound.

He cried out when a thick finger unceremoniously breached his opening.

“You’re tight enough to be one,” Croc growled. “Too bad. I hate virgins. So predictable.”

Croc twisted the finger, eliciting another strangled cry, Clark’s body arching off the floor. He squirmed, wanting nothing more than to escape the intrusion, but Croc wouldn’t allow it, following his every move, pushing relentlessly, driving the finger deeper up to the second knuckle.

“S-stop… _please…_ ”

Soon, too soon, another finger slipped in and Croc, agonizingly, began to pump his fingers in and out of Clark’s entrance.

“ _Ahhh_! … _oww_ … no, don’t…!” His body was rigid, drawn tight as a bow. He couldn’t draw breath enough for a full scream, only brief gasps of pain with eyes screwed shut, as if trying to stave off the coming violation. It hurt. It burned, pain flaring up red-hot at his puckered entrance, but he knew the worst was yet to come.

For a brief, merciful moment, the fingers were removed, leaving his hole aching and clenching. Croc spat messily into his palm and reared back to slick his cock. Clark couldn’t help but raise his head to watch the instrument of his rape, whimpering as he saw it rise to full erection, thick and veined with the blunt head glistening with pre-cum.

Croc abandoned his wrists in favor of using both hands to lift the backs of both knees, pushing upwards so that Clark was nearly folded in half, feet completely off the ground so that he had nothing to brace against, no purchase, totally vulnerable, his reddened, stretched entrance exposed for anyone to see or plunder. Croc paused, the leaking mushroom-head of his cock teasing against Clark’s hole, which was spasming in fear and pain, an awful moment at the edge of the precipice. Licked his lips as if he was savoring the moment before he plunged.

Blinking was no longer keeping the tears at bay. They overflowed and spilled hotly down Clark’s cheeks. He shook his head in mute denial, as if hoping against all hope that it wasn’t going to happen, but knowing with despair that it would.

Croc leaned down to force a kiss onto Clark’s mouth, then whispered huskily, “Get ready for the ride of your life, baby,” and thrust forwards.

The scream nearly tore his throat in half, his back arching off the floor. Bright spots invaded his vision. Croc had buried himself to the hilt on the first thrust, his hips flush with Clark’s bottom. He felt himself stretch, then tear open inside.

_Oh God, it hurt_ s… The pain spread upwards all the way to his belly in a slow, aching burn. He’d never known that sex with a man could hurt so much.

“P-please…” he moaned brokenly, as Croc groaned long and deep, enraptured by the moment he first entered Clark’s heat. He could feel his anus clenching and unclenching in helpless agony around Croc’s iron length, trying hard to adjust against the violation. He gulped for air, high-pitched wheezing gasps, as he felt Croc pulling out, only to slam back in with all his strength.

Clark couldn’t help but scream again.

Giving him no time to adjust, Croc immediately set up a cruel and punishing pace, thrusting in and out of Clark’s shaking body, bearing his weight down so that Clark’s knees were pressed nearly to his own chest. The room was filled with the wet, fleshy smacks of Croc’s hips, interspersed with Clark’s pained gasps and the occasional sob.

The intimacy was just as bad, if not worse, than the pain, with Croc’s rhythmic grunting as he moved above Clark, which to his horror, he began mimicking in his own gasping, shuddering attempt to achieve _some_ sort of pace so that it would be bearable. They moaned together in tandem, “ungh, ungh, _ungh_ ,” in a mockery of lovemaking. Their sweat-slicked bodies moved against each other, slipping and sliding with each thrust, Clark’s hands pushing helplessly against the monster’s thick chest. Occasionally, Croc would lean down to whisper terrible things, as if they were a couple engaging in dirty talk, “That’s right, baby, take it all, you’re sucking me in, _so good_ , you love it dontcha, you love getting fucked on my cock, you love it, you love it.”

Then, cruelly, while wiping away Clark’s tears, “You cry like a virgin but you moan like a whore.”

Unwillingly, even now, Clark’s thoughts went to Bruce and the tender way he’d kept whispering “Is this ok? Are you alright? I’ve got you, I’ve got you,” the first time they’d tumbled into Clark’s bed in a fit of passion.

He cried out as a particularly hard thrust flung him back into the present. His heels thumped helplessly against Croc’s lower back. His back scraped against bare concrete. He found himself almost helping his rapist along, surging his body forward to meet each punishing plunge, not knowing whether to plead _wait, please wait, slow down, please slow down,_ or _please, please, just hurry up and let it end…_

It went on for what seemed like an eternity before Croc’s muscles started to tighten, his thrusts growing erratic. His monster’s maw went slack with pleasure before he threw his head back and roared, his release gushing out like a volcano inside of Clark’s helpless body. He continued to thrust insistently for a full minute afterwards, come squirting out of Clark’s hole as he pistoned in and out, milking every last drop of pleasure for himself, and every last moment of pain for Clark. When he finally had his fill, he pulled out roughly, ignoring Clark’s soft sob of protest.

Thoroughly ravaged, Clark could only lie there, arms and legs splayed, not even able to move a finger, not even to protest when Croc fondled his limp genitals and muttered, “cold fish, no fun at all,” and smacked his ass harshly. _Please leave me alone, please just go, haven’t you done enough?_ he thought despairingly, eyes closed in defeat. But nothing came of it. These last miniscule ministrations were designed to humiliate rather than to hurt.

Croc left him there, his satisfied rumblings fading into the distance, only to be replaced by cackling laughter. (Replaced? Or had it been going on the whole time, the laughter, a background noise during his rape? He couldn’t tell.)

“Softened him up for you, Boss,” was Croc’s farewell, before a murmur of water told his departure.

Clark drifted, far away from his ruined body, before he felt a handkerchief wiping down his face, clearing way the tears, blood, and snot. He opened his eyes to see Joker above him, smiling.

“Learned your lesson?” he crooned.

Clark worked his throat until he had the energy to rasp, “You’re a _monster_.”

“And _you’re_ pathetic. Look at you. _You_ let this happen to yourself, soldier boy. Not me.”

Clark closed his eyes quickly, but couldn’t keep the fresh tears from escaping. He knew with awful clarity that even if he made it out alive, there was some part of him that was damaged, broken, perhaps beyond repair. He was… filthy.

_Oh, Bruce…_

“That transmission wasn’t going anywhere, by the way,” Joker said conversationally. “We weren’t broadcasting live. After your little stunt, no one even knows you’re here. No one’s coming for you.”

He leaned down and put his face very close to Clark’s. “And, sweetheart? We _will_ make that video, the _right_ way, no matter how many takes we need to do. I will _break_ you to get the perfect shot.”

Clark turned his face away, only to have his chin grabbed and turned back. “Don’t cry, sweetheart,” sing-songed the Joker. His mouth contorted into a horrible smile. “Why cry, when you can _laugh_?”

Joker kissed him forcefully, shoving his tongue in. Clark felt the foreign muscle lick the roof of his mouth, felt a the tiny capsule it was carrying break against his palate. By the time Joker pulled away, his body was already convulsing.

“What… what did you… ahhhh… ahaha…HAH...!”

Clark laughed.

He broke off into peal after peal of laughter. He laughed until his stomach hurt, hands clutched to his middle, whooping for breath. He roared with laughter, guffaws escaping even as he clapped hands over his mouth, each tremor wracking his already-punished body with pain. He laughed until he wet himself, until he vomited, then passed out, then woke up laughing again.

He hallucinated that he was back in Smallville, that he was a child again, running through the ticklish, ankle-deep grass of the fields of home. He tasted sweet tea and syrupy honey ham on his tongue, his real-life shrunken stomach heaving on the warehouse floor with sickness at the memory. He imagined he saw the wheat fields, young and silvery green, drinking up the spring rain, then ripening under the hot sun until it was a rippling sea of gold. Then he saw it all rot and turn black. The harvest shriveled, growing prickly and thorny under his feet, then Devil’s claws were reaching out from the ground and grabbing him, pulling him down, and he was naked again on a cold floor, his body lurching as if he were being fucked again, and he was moaning for it like the whore they said he was. He cried out once for Dad, then twice for Bruce.

And laughed.

And laughed.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, this was originally going to have more development, but I thought I should isolate this collection of scenes because of its dark themes. That way, it can easily be skipped or ignored by anyone (who isn't a sadist like me) who doesn't like that stuff. 
> 
> Thanks so much for reading!!! As always, feedback is greatly appreciated.


	7. Scream

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bruce and a nervous Clark finally take their relationship to the next level in the past. In the future, the chase continues.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry for the delay! As always, no copyright infringement intended, no profits made.

_Present_

_Please stop me if you’ve heard this one before…_

Joker’s voice crackled over the video feed and invaded the tunnels of the Batcave like poison seeping through veins.

_A man walks into a bar…_

There was a responding gurgle of laughter, low and manic and pained.

_Well… at least one person_ _thinks I’m funny_.

And then the screen was filled with the image of Clark, and the noises he was making were barely human. He knelt in a pool of his own urine, laughing, sobbing, tears streaming down his lacerated face, hands tearing at his hair. There was blood running down the crack of his buttocks, fat finger-bruises purpling on his hips.

Bruce didn’t remember screaming or putting his gauntleted fist through the monitor, but in his next conscious moment, the image of Clark had splintered into a million shards of glass and a hoarsely shouted curse was echoing through the Cave. It bounced off the harsh edges of bare rock and reverberated back at him in his own voice, a dozen fading accusations.

“Congratulations, Master Wayne,” Alfred said sharply, snapping him back to reality. “You’ve managed to kill a monitor.”

Bruce staggered back and slumped into a chair, watching numbly as Alfred started to sweep up the glass and cracked plastic. Cool, precise, and efficient. The exact opposite of what he was feeling.

Batman’s cowl lay on the floor where he’d dropped it. There was a smear of blood splatter across the forehead, an ivory sliver of chipped tooth stuck to it like a scab. Souvenirs from his rampage through Gotham, that had turned up nothing. For days, he had been the fear and shadows, the nightmare that haunted every criminal, from the elite to the lowest of the low. No leads. No Joker. No Clark.

_I feel safe with you_ , Clark had said once, a moist, sleepy murmur against the crook of his arm as they spooned together, naked skin prickling from the chill of the air conditioner. _You make me feel safe._

And where had that gotten him?

“I failed him, Alfred.”

It was his first and greatest fear. It hovered over him like a second shadow, whispering in his ear: _I failed him, I failed him, I failed him_.

The broom handle clacked against the wall where Alfred propped it up, a sharp clear sound, and the butler was striding towards him, arms crossed. “You need to hydrate. You need to eat. You need to get out of the suit before it sticks to you and you need to shower and patch up before you get an infection. Then, you need to sleep.”

He said it in his clipped grocery-list voice, ticking off items like vegetables, making the impossible seem possible.

_You need to dry your tears, Master Bruce. You need to wash up. You need to dress, I’ll help you with the tie. The funeral’s in an hour, you need to get ready._

Bruce attempted to stand, slumped back down. “I… can’t. He’s out there somewhere, I need to…”

“You’re no good to anyone half dead.”

A flare of useless anger. “You _saw_ what they did to him!”

“ _Yes_ , I saw. And you’re no good to him dead on your feet.”

“What they did…” his voice cracked.

“Listen to me, sir,” Alfred said urgently, pushing a hand down on Bruce’s shoulder.. “ _Yes_ , they hurt him. They violated him. They took away his dignity. But he’s still _alive_. I’ve lived long enough and seen enough to know that any life, even a broken one, is better than no life at all. We’ll do what you can for him, but first you need to eat, wash, and sleep.”

Bruce shook his head. Shoved himself back in front of the workstation. Rubbed his eyes. “Later.”

His hands flew over the computer controls, angrily punching keys. He replayed the surveillance footage from the day Clark was taken. He watched with narrowed eyes as the grainy image of Clark got into the company car that was supposed to take him to a Metropolis sporting event. Swallowed the lump in his throat at the knowledge that just minutes ago, Clark had been kissing Bruce, smiling at Bruce, with fingers curled around Bruce’s ring like he was holding a promise in his fist.

He watched the car travel from one end of the screen to the next, then start over, flicking through a series of different angles, one surveillance camera after another picking up the duration age of the trip. It headed north, went over a bridge, through a tunnel, then inexplicably veered off course and headed further west towards Gotham. It crossed the freeway into Batman’s city, then took an exit onto a lonely side street. Then, the attack happened. Something unseen made the car blow a tire, sending it careening out of control to crash into a telephone pole. Masked figures emerged from somewhere off screen, flanking the vehicle, pulling open the doors, dragging out a dazed driver and a struggling Clark. There was some sort of blow to the side of Clark’s neck, an injection perhaps, and he went limp. The driver got the same treatment, but was left on the ground while Clark was dragged away.

“I’m going interrogate the driver,” said Bruce.

“The police already took her statement at the hospital, she doesn’t remember anything.”

“Then they haven’t pressed her hard enough. _I’m_ going to interrogate her.”

“She’d just lapsed into a coma yesterday,” Alfred said disbelievingly.

“There are ways to bring her out of a coma.”

“You’re going to medically endanger a civilian?”

“She’s _not_ a civilian,” Bruce growled. “Not if she had any hand in this.”

Alfred stared at him for a long moment. Pushed a hand down on Bruce’s arm as if to restrain him. “You don’t have to do this alone, you know.”

Bruce sighed and stood, pushed past Alfred. “I take it Lois called again.”

“She’s offering to help.”

“I work alone.” He detached his cape, his gauntlets, unbuckled his belt, laying down each piece on its stand for repair and maintenance. 

“Yes, and how’s that turning out?” Alfred said dryly.

Bruce stripped off outer layers of Kevlar, unbuckled his boots. Headed for the shower.

Alfred pursued him with the relentlessness of a bloodhound. “She says she has information, something that is a precious commodity at the moment.”

“I already have information.”

“Yes, reams of it, and none of it makes any sense. A driver with no criminal background suddenly heading directly into a crime for no discernable reason. A series of brutalized victims with no apparent connection. And the Metropolis reporter from the next city over, who seems to be too random a choice, even for the Joker.” Alfred followed him up a set of stairs, words punctuated by the clank of dress shoes on metal grating. “Then there’s Joker himself, publicly swearing revenge on the Gotham underworld and demanding money at the same time, yet not really trying too hard to get either. Bruce Wayne’s frame up. The two policemen that have no name or record in the GCPD, who held you hostage in a hospital. _Sir.”_

They’d reached the bathroom, Bruce’s hand on the doorknob, Alfred looking at him imploringly. “Perhaps Miss Lane can give us a fresh perspective.”

“Did the facial recognition turn up anything?” said Bruce, ignoring the cultured tirade.

Alfred made an annoyed _tsking_ sound. “The sketch you drew from memory of the two policemen? I told you nothing would come up, and no, nothing came up.”

“Run it again.” Bruce opened the bathroom door, paused with his hand on the jamb. “I’m not involving her in this Alfred.”

The eyes of his oldest and most loyal friend flicked guiltily in the general direction of the glass case, Robin’s defaced suit. He exhaled through his nose, then said softly, “I’ll run the facial recognition again.” He turned on his heel and left, gesturing at a nearby table with a tray that held tomato soup and toast. “It’s getting cold, by the way.”

Tomato.

Bruce jaw ached at the memory of tomato soup. Not Alfred’s smoothly blended concoction of heirlooms, but hot and chunky and slightly burnt, straight from the can. He remembered a crackling fire in Wayne Manor. Clark, so beautifully framed by orange light, mouth pursed around a spoon, naked under a moth-eaten blanket. Smiling up at Bruce, eyelashes still damp from the storm, mouth moist and red and sour-sweet. _I feel safe with you_.

Clark, starving and tortured, screaming with laughter even as he was raped…

Bruce locked the door behind him, ran the shower as hot as it would go, stood under the punishing spray, and did what he had perfected in his years as the Bat: screaming silently.

 

X

 

Clark’s mind drifted as his body was ministered to by rubber-gloved hands. Water drizzled onto cracked lips. Warm soup spooned into his mouth, his damaged throat protesting. An ice pack on his neck. Antiseptic on his wounds, followed by the burn. His limbs were pulled this way and that, his legs parted so a wet towel could wipe away blood, semen, and filth from between his buttocks, the sharp pain a sickening reminder of what happened. A cotton ball dabbed at the cut on his face and he drifted far, far away, and it was his father’s own gentle hands: _Corn leaves are sharp, son, you have to be careful…_

“Come on, you big baby, into the tub.” Harley Quinn.

She heaved him into a plastic vat the size of a kiddie pool that smelled of old chemicals, but it was full of lukewarm water, which enveloped him in such blessed comfort that it brought tears to his eyes. She washed him with clinical hands, humming under her breath while a gun-toting, leery-eyed man watched over them both.

A clang of metal. She manhandled him, dripping, into an upturned cage that probably used to store gas tanks. It was no bigger than a dog kennel; he had to curl up to fit.

“ _Help me_ ,” he pleaded, grabbing her ankle, just as she was about to shut the door. “Please. He’s using you. Don’t help him do this. You’re better than that. Help me.”

She peered down at him with wide blue eyes. “Don’t worry,” she said. “When Batman comes, Mr. J will let you go. Or kill you. Either way, it won’t be long.” She shook him off. Closed the door of the cage and wrapped the bars with a chain. “In the meantime, Baby needs to stay in his crib.”

She flicked off the space heater when she left, leaving him in the cold and the dark with dangerously wet skin. He grabbed the bars of the cage, which pressed down at him from all sides, trapping him in a rusted iron coffin, his panicky breathing already puffing white in the cold air. In the distance, he could hear laughter. Was it real, or was it in his head?

He tried, and failed, not to scream.

X

_Past_

It was 2pm on Thursday during Clark’s overdue lunch break, and Bruce had a hand in his hair and lips on his cheek, and was whispering into his ear, “I’m in town through tomorrow afternoon. I’m at the Hotel Grand Lux. Come stay the night.”

 

He’d been giddy at first from seeing Bruce, abandoning the line for the cachapa truck and running half the block into Bruce’s waiting hug, but now he felt his stomach plummet.

 

He tugged nervously at Bruce’s lapel. “Just to be clear, when you say _stay the night_ …”

 

_Get out, you weirdo!_ echoed through his head. Standing on Missy Davis’ porch, sleeping bag and Scrabble board in hand, face hot with humiliation and befuddlement after having a door slammed in it, was not something he ever wanted to experience again. 

 

Bruce chuckled warmly and Clark was suddenly very, _very_ aware of Bruce’s body pressed against him, Bruce’s thigh against his own, the other man’s heat through his spring jacket. “I’m asking,” said Bruce, his voice a warm puff against Clark’s ear, “if you’d like to spend the night with me. I’m saying that I want to _be with you_. And I’m hoping,” he pulled back for a moment and touched Clark’s chin with his thumb like he was pushing a button, “that you want to be with me too.”

And so, the moment had arrived.

It always arrived sooner or later, and usually sooner rather than later. The Next Step. Put out or get out.

Whether it was the course of a single drink or months of dating, the moment always came when chaste dating led to the expectation, the _obligation,_ for more. Let the moment pass, and a girl would feel like a jilted bride. Let the moment slide away, and a man would feel like his time was being wasted. It was the Normal course of things in this city, where Virgin was an insult, and Marriage was the grudging, tired reward that came later, much later, after sex was already had and deemed acceptable.

And who was he kidding, it was the Normal course of things back in Smallville too, despite the conservative environment. He still remembered junior year and Faye Hargreaves in her hot pink bra, t’shirt tossed over his steering wheel, him backed up against the car door like a deer caught in the headlights, her assertive, lip-glossed words, “If you buy a girl dinner she _has_ to have sex with you, it’s the _law_.” No, he, the Kent boy, was the one odd duck in a giant pond of Normal People, the only one who still believed that First Times were special.

“Clark?” Bruce pulled back to peer at him when the silence lingered.

Instead of responding, Clark buried his face in Bruce’s chest and stayed there until Bruce’s arms, slightly uncertain, came around him. Clark’s favorite of Bruce’s physical features wasn’t his handsome face but his powerful stature. Clark Kent was naturally a big guy. Not many men had the broad shoulders and strong arms to completely engulf him, holding him against a rock-solid chest, to make him feel protected and safe.

He loved Bruce and Bruce wanted to… well, it was only right to give Bruce what he wanted. Wasn’t it?

“I want to be with you,” said Clark, and was proud that his voice didn’t waver once. He braced himself for some kind of leery, flirtatious comment, _I can’t wait to get your clothes off tonight, I’m gonna keep you up all night long…_

But all Bruce said was “That’s good,” a little quickly, and then held him a little tighter. “That’s really good.”

X

The three of them, him, his billionaire boyfriend, and his steely-eyed best friend, had eaten three polite but chilly lunches together during which Clark smiled too wide and tried too hard, and went home with the impression that Bruce and Lois were mutually suspicious of each other. (“I just… can’t get a good read on him,” Lois had said afterwards. “And I’m pretty good at reading people, especially the rich playboy types that like to think they’re deeper than they are.”)

Plus, there was an unspoken rule that you didn’t talk to your ex about your current (impending) sex life, but he ended up spilling everything to Lois during their 5pm coffee break anyway.

“Hm,” was her response.

“Hm, what?” he demanded. Selfishly, he’d expected nothing but encouragement from her and immediately felt sullen when no encouragement was forthcoming.

She shrugged and took a sip of black coffee. Glanced at the TV monitor in the corner of the café where Jessica of _Celebrity Gossip_ was talking: _Gotham billionaire Bruce Wayne has been spending an_ awful _lot of time in Metropolis lately. Speculations are flying about a new_ boyfriend _, who sources pinpoint as a reporter from a rather_ prominent _newspaper…_

She wordlessly added some sugar from the sticky glass jar at the corner of the table. Took another sip.  

“I know what you’re thinking,” said Clark, frowning.

She raised an eyebrow. Her lip quirked. _Oh, really?_

“You can say it. I’m not his usual drink order.”

“And he isn’t yours,” Lois said defensively. She stirred her coffee, two angry little rotations, spoon crushing the sugar granules at the bottom of the mug.

The exquisitely made-up woman on TV was doing a back-and-forth with her co-host, their voices like tinny little birds cheeping. Verbally pecking at a blurry paparazzi photo of Clark, arm in arm with Bruce.

_Now Darlene, we’re not talking millions here, we’re talking billions,_ billions _of dollars that Bruce Wayne is worth. And on top of that, he’s charming, sophisticated, and_ very _easy on the eyes. Just what do you think he sees in a guy like this?_

_Well, Jessica, he’s got the nerdy hipster look going for him, some people like that…_

“You’re surprised he’s actually asking me to…” Clark’s face colored, “to spend the night with him. You didn’t think he’d even want to.”

“Actually, I’m surprised it took him that long.”

It was his turn to raise an eyebrow.

“I’ve seen the way he looks at you,” said Lois, nodding as if to herself. “He gets this _look_. Like he’s seeing something really, really beautiful.”

 

“That’s sweet, Lois.”

 

“I don’t mean he actually thinks you’re beautiful.”

 

“Uh… thanks?”

 

“What I mean is…” she sighed and rubbed her temples, like she was physically trying to gather a thought with her fingers. “He doesn’t see you like he sees a pretty face or a nice pair of legs. Have you ever been really, _really_ hungry and then see your favorite meal, and it’s suddenly the most beautiful thing in the world because it’s what you _need_? He looks at you like that.”

He tried to imagine himself as a pizza, all gooey-cheesy, with pepperoni slices for eyes, and a cartoonish bite mark taken out of his right shoulder. Pizza Clark.

“That’s… kind of gross and a little creepy.”

“The point being, he obviously cares for you. And he makes you happy, apparently.”

“He does.”

“It’s just that… well.”

“Well, _what_?”

“Do you remember the Bailey story a few years back?”

“Do I have to?” Clark said, grimacing.

“You know what happened. A rich, charming man sweeps Plain Jane woman off her feet. He was old money and Most Eligible Bachelor of the year. She was a secretary with two cats. Whirlwind romance followed by a quick proposal. It seemed too good to be true. It was. Not even a month of married bliss when she found out that dear Hubby was the type to marry and dump a woman, then after lunch, marry and dump two more. He got off on it. She tries to leave him before he leaves her, his ego can’t take it, he buries an axe in her head. Now he’s in Switzerland somewhere taking a ski vacation and she’s in a home with brain damage, her earliest memory being waking up in a trauma ward.”

Clark squinted at her. “So... you’re saying that Bruce is going to axe me?”

“I’m _saying_ , Smallville, that you two are from different worlds, and when people from different worlds get together… well, things are always more complicated than they seem.” Her dainty, city-pale, manicured fingers touched his rough, farm boy knuckles. “You understand, don’t you?”

 

He swallowed and looked down at his lap. Picked at a crack in the leather seat. “At this point, Lo, I’m willing to take whatever he gives me, complicated or not.”

 

“You shouldn’t, you know,” she said almost angrily. “You shouldn’t take whatever someone gives you. I didn’t.” She touched the gold chain around her neck, the one he’d given her because he couldn’t afford an engagement ring. It was a thin, flimsy thing, but it glowed the way only real gold could.

X

_You shouldn’t take whatever someone gives you._

The thought stayed with him all day like a sour aftertaste, and it was Lois’ flashy-eyed challenge rather than his own discomfort as Bruce nibbled on his ear and slid a hand up his leg that made him blurt, “This is my first time,” the words tumbling out inelegantly and unstoppably like a burp of bad gas.

Bruce, who was in the process of popping another shirt button, pulled back and said sluggishly, “Huh?”

“I’ve… never done this before.”

Bruce blinked at him. Removed his hands, which had been caressing Clark’s tense body with practiced ease, like he was backing away from a bomb, all gingerly and _whoa there, easy_.

“You’re kidding. Never? Not even once?”

“N-no. I’ve never… not with anyone.”

There was a slight pressure on his knee. Bruce was cupping his kneecap like an apple, staring at him, slightly slack-jawed, as if seeing him for the first time. There was an agonizing, prolonged silence, during which Clark studiously avoided Bruce’s eyes, certain that it could go only one of two ways:

Bruce would continue as if it were no big deal (even though it was), perhaps murmuring wetly into his mouth, _it’s ok, I’ll take care of you, I’ll show you what you’ve been missing,_ and stroke him with hands that have stroked dozens of other women and men, kiss him with lips that held the memory of dozens of other kisses. Clark would agree to anything and everything, telling himself that it felt good (even when it didn’t).

Or, Bruce would take his reticence as an offence and show him, politely but coldly, to the door, and then spend an angry, unsatisfied night drinking iced scotch and regretting the months he’d wasted on Clark.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered miserably, not sure exactly what he was apologizing for.

His pulse hammered against his neck, where Bruce’s lips had been. _Thump-thump, Thump-thump. Put out or get out, put out or get out, putoutorgetout… Get out, you weirdo!_

“Of course,” Bruce said softly. “I should have known.” Which wasn’t on the script.

Bruce got a faraway look in his eyes as he took in the expensive trappings of the penthouse suite. Two glasses of sparkling wine fizzed weakly on the marble slab of the coffee table. The remains of their room service dinner sat on two hotel-monogrammed plates at the oak-paneled bar. Clark could imagine a slinky, buxom woman sprawled across the countertop, making eyes at Bruce while fixing a pair of martinis, her perfume filling up the air, mingling with the tang of gin.

“This is wrong,” Bruce said, as if to himself. “All this…  Maybe for anyone else in the world, but you… you’re special.” Which was _definitely_ not on the script.

“I _do_ want you, Bruce. I _do_. It’s just…”

“You’re not ready yet?”

“I… I can…” Clark made a move to touch some part of Bruce, to show that he _could,_ that he wasn’t a cold fish or a freak or a tease, but he found himself being gently pushed away.

“You’re not ready.”

“I…”

“Don’t say you’re sorry. Please don’t.”

Bruce slipped from the sofa and he had a momentary panicky moment when he thought Bruce would leave, but the other man was kneeling down in front of him so he could look into his eyes.

“You know I would never pressure you to do anything you don’t want to, right? If you’re not ready, I’m not ready. Ok?”

Bruce was looking at him like he was something to be treasured, something precious to be taken care of. Bruce was looking at him _exactly_ like Lois said, like he was Pizza Clark instead of Just Clark, so much that he almost said, “Don’t eat me.”

The fact that Bruce would take _his_ desires into consideration, and put those desires above everything else was something that had never occurred to Clark. His heart fluttered. “…Ok.”

Bruce smiled with a small nod, which Clark mimicked, then leaned forward to give him a chaste kiss on the lips, and he was shifting on the sofa cushions to wrap Clark up in those strong arms in the way Clark liked, the way only he could. “It’s ok,” he soothed, running a hand through Clark’s curls, which immediately made him feel sleepy and lazy-boned. “We’re ok.”

Eyes closed, Clark confessed in a whisper, “What if you realize that I’m not worth waiting for? That I’m… just me?”

“Newsflash, Smallville,” said Bruce, in a nearly-perfect imitation of Lois’ lilt. “I don’t need to realize anything. I know you’re Just You, and you know what? I kinda like Just You. So don’t mind me if I stick around.”

Clark muffled up a relieved laugh in Bruce’s shirt front. “I love you, Bruce,” he said sleepily. “And I _will_ be ready. I… Hey, what’s wrong?”

Bruce had stiffened under him. He pulled back and saw that his boyfriend was staring at him, slightly slack-jawed, like he’d gotten whiplash.

“Nothing,” said Bruce. “Nothing at all.” Then smiled in a way that was so vulnerable and full of wonder that Clark thought he could see what Bruce looked like as a boy. And they were kissing, and Clark’s mouth was sliding open so that Bruce could taste him.

“Do you want me to go?” Clark said afterwards, when they were lying against each other on the sofa, the embroidery scratchy under his cheek, and it was obvious no lovemaking was going to take place that night. The vicious chant of _getoutgetoutgetout_ was like a flowing undercurrent, quiet but insistent. Muted, but still present.

“You don’t have to stay. But… I’d like it if you did. Whatever makes you comfortable, Clark.”

“I… I’d like to stay.”

“I’m glad.”

Clark shifted, playing with the loose threads on the cuff of his sleeve. “I, um… I didn’t bring any pajamas.” Winced. Braced himself for a lewd, bar-side male comment, _that’s ok baby, we can just sleep naked._

“That’s ok,” said Bruce. “I’ve got some things in the dresser here. Take anything you like.”

He ended up picking out an oversized Gotham Knights t’shirt and a pair of workout shorts, changing hurriedly in the opulent bathroom.

They spent the rest of the night on the roof, snuggled together on a patio chair under a decorative hotel comforter, drinking Riesling, Metropolis twinkling beneath them like an inverted night sky.

“You know, there’s this really great Mexican place about 2 miles from my hometown in Kansas,” he murmured, when the wine bottle was half empty. Bruce was running fingers through his hair and Charles Trenet was playing from a speaker cleverly disguised as a rock. “They have this scary-spicy burrito about the size of your arm, called El Monstruo. There was this challenge: if you finish one, you get your name on the bulletin board and a complimentary drink. Once I was fifteen, I wandered in and ate two of those burritos and didn’t even know about the challenge until a week later.”

He smiled at the memory, then immediately winced. It was a beautiful, starlit night, a night for waxing poetic and sipping wine and he was talking about stuffing his craw with gas-inducing fast food. It was a wonder Bruce still wanted him around… but then Bruce was snorting into the side of his neck with laughter and leaving tart kisses on Clark’s lips and ear and neck, mumbling something like “Where’ve you been all my life?”

“Did you ever get your name on the board?” Bruce wanted to know.

“Nope. Should’ve kept the receipt.”

“I had them put a decal on those doors, you know,” said Bruce, gesturing to the glass sliding doors where Clark had bashed his face in the first time he’d been there. There was a swirly gold G and a loopy silver L superimposed on a blocky white H, right at eye level. Any more obvious, and they’d be hooking up LED’s in the shape of an exclamation sign: _Warming, don’t run into glass doors!_

“There was already a decal before,” Clark mumbled, embarrassed.

“I had them put a bigger one on.” Bruce pushed Clark’s nose like it was a button.

They ended up brushing their teeth together over the sink. Neither of them offered to sleep on the couch. Bruce made two mounds of blankets on the bed, but after snuggling in, Clark, irresistibly, reached under the covers for Bruce’s hand. He fell asleep with the breath of “sweet dreams” still on his cheek.

It was raining the next morning but the world felt luminous. Bruce, already freshly dressed when he yawned his way into consciousness, presented him with hot coffee and a fresh bagel, then read him the morning news while he gathered his things, and then stumbled into the bathroom to shower.

Neither of them had an umbrella, so Bruce held his jacket over the both of them and they went for the subway station at a run.

“Sure you don’t want a cab?” Bruce asked, as they stood together under the awning, one foot in and one foot out, commuters sliding past them like fish.

“It’s rush hour,” said Clark. “The subway’s faster than a car.”

“I can ride with you.”

“You hate the subway.”

“I _love_ the subway.”

Clark smiled at the blatant lie. “I’ll see you, Bruce.” Their goodbye kiss felt like _farewell_ and _hello_ at the same time.

 

After that day, their relationship seemed to soften and slow down, stretching timelessly, like an eternal summer day.

They did ordinary, mundane things together. They watched movies without Bruce buying out the entire theater, then bickered about cinematic themes and characterizations over pizza or burgers, ordinary restaurants without the need for Bruce’s high-profile reservations or Clark’s meticulous internet reviews. They grocery shopped together, or rather, Clark grocery shopped and Bruce tagged along, picking out something small and expensive like artisan jam or artichoke hearts, taking Clark’s teasing in stride, _(these are called coupons, Bruce, I’m sure you’ve watched a documentary on them before)_ and making a big show of being befuddled by the dairy aisle. They watched television on Clark’s sagging couch twice a week.

“Tell me about it,” Bruce would urge, after a tough day at the Daily Planet, and Clark would whisper back, “Just be with me,” and lean tiredly against Bruce’s side as the cab nudged its way through Midtown during rush hour. He’d always hated rush hour, and he felt like total _sap_ for enjoying it now because it meant he got to spend an extra half hour with Bruce.

They stopped experiencing things together, and started experiencing each other. They stopped learning things about each other, and started learning each other. Two different people with two different rhythms, learning to sync up.

It wasn’t perfect, not when Bruce took him golfing once and was so spectacularly bad at it that Clark spent most of the time red-faced and pouty from holding in his laughter, not sure whether or not Bruce would be offended. “Alright, go ahead and laugh,” Bruce grouched at the 18th hole, and Clark had steadily refused, until Bruce tackled him around the middle and rolled them both into the sweet, tickly grass, until they were both breathless and snorting with laughter.

It wasn’t perfect when Bruce met him after Sunday baseball practice with a gang of grouchy-hot fifth graders, and Clark was sweaty and gross and hoarse from yelling at his hitters, but Bruce still smiled at him like he was Pizza Clark. It wasn’t perfect when Bruce picked him up from volunteering at the nearby animal shelter and he smelled like cat food and dog slobber, but Bruce still snuggled into him, nose in hair, and breathed in his scent like he was wearing expensive cologne.

It wasn’t perfect when Clark visited Bruce at WAYNE FINANCIAL and had to run the gauntlet of sideways glances and hushed whispers all the way from the elevator to Bruce’s office, only to find it empty. It wasn’t perfect when he fell asleep on the plush leather couch waiting, then woke up to an Armani coat draped over him like a blanket, the owner lounging in the wingback chair across the room watching him with half-lidded eyes and a tender smile. But it was very, very good when he sauntered over behind Bruce, coat hanging loosely about his shoulders, and slung himself over Bruce’s back, nuzzling into Bruce’s neck, and Bruce twisted backwards to kiss him.

(Ok, so it was perfect, but Clark never referred to anything as perfect anymore, for fear that it would be taken away from him.)

On Clark’s birthday, they both took a day off work and drove to the beach in Bruce’s Ashton Martin, “La Mer” crooning seductively from the speakers, Clark’s hand dangling out the window, grabbing the air as it grew damper and saltier the further they got.

Clark wondered foolishly why the beach, a lovely stretch of creamy-pale sand and water so clear and blue that it made you thirsty just looking at it, was so empty on a June day, and Bruce shrugged and said simply, “It’s my private beach. I only invited you.”

Clark lost his glasses as soon he waded into the exquisite water, and Bruce dove in with all the skill of an Olympic swimmer to retrieve it, staying under long enough to make Clark _really_ nervous, before emerging, glistening and dripping, with the cheap black frames held triumphantly in one hand and a perfect pink seashell in the other as a bonus gift.

They swam in the ocean and wrestled in the shallows, Bruce letting Clark win. They dug out clams with their toes and grilled them on an outdoors fire, just as the sun was going down. Cold beers. Salty kisses.

Bruce lowered himself over Clark as the sky blazed red and gold, and his lips were on Clark’s neck and his hand was on Clark’s chest, and there was nothing between them but gritty sand and thin swimming trunks, and Clark thought, _this is it, he’s going to make love to me_ , and the thought of it excited him rather than frightened him. But Bruce was shoving off him to check on the clams, leaving Clark with an unsatisfied _want_ in his belly, and before long, they were back in the city with only the lingering smell of brine and the memory of sun.

Bruce never pushed him. He never tried to get Clark to do more than they already had, no tugging or demanding, invasive touches passed off as playfulness. And it was this lack of pressure that gave Clark the freedom to let his own desires grow. To nurture that stunted, lonely part of him so that it warmed, then smoldered into a flame, which grew and grew until one day he decided, _this is it. I’m ready_.

There was no real premeditation, (he was never good at seduction) just a comfortable anticipation in the back of his mind as he invited Bruce over on a Friday night. He made steaming large meatballs for dinner, shaping them with an ice cream scoop the way his mother did, and told Bruce about Mom’s venison meatballs from back home.

“We always had them in October. Deer season. Dad and his friends would go hunting. Sometimes he brought me along. Mom loved fresh venison.”

“Didn’t think you were the hunting type,” said Bruce, setting and resetting the table, occasionally inspecting Clark’s silverware under the light. “Thought you loved animals.”

Clark shrugged. “It’s how we do in Kansas. We’re farmers. Deer can literally eat us out of house and home if there’s too many of them.” He stirred the sauce, looked over his shoulder at Bruce and smiled, imagining his patrician boyfriend in a Teddy Roosevelt getup, shiny knee-high boots and rifle slung over his shoulder. “You ever do any hunting?”

A fork clinked against the table. “Sometimes,” said Bruce, his voice getting weird and hoarse, his eyes focusing on something in the distance. “At night.”

Clark nodded. “I know what you mean. We always get up as early as 3am for deer.” He remembered the crisp, freezing air of a hunting day, as he dished out the meatballs and poured the expensive wine that Bruce brought. Dad, showing him how to shoot correctly, straight through the shoulder and into the lung, so that the deer didn’t suffer. The Kents never kept any hooves or antlers for trophies. Dad said it took away the animal’s dignity.

Bruce heartily complimented Clark’s cooking. They shared some ice cream from Clark’s freezer afterwards, then moved to the couch and flicked on an old movie. It didn’t matter which one. They usually ended up talking and cuddling anyway, the TV as background noise.

“Is it always this cold in here?” Bruce asked, as Clark snuggled close, his turtleneck pulled nearly to his ears.

“My heater’s on the fritz. Sorry.”

“It’s not your fault. It’s the building super that needs a good talking to.”

Clark didn’t mind. It gave him an excuse to burrow into Bruce’s warmth while working up the nerve to make a move.

15 minutes into the movie, Clark, palms sweaty and heart pounding, leaned over and kissed Bruce on the mouth. He made it linger for a while, then just as Bruce was starting to pull away, he deepened the kiss, parting his lips in a wordless request. He felt Bruce’s sigh of pleasure, a hand in his hair, a tongue in his mouth. Feeling bold, he lifted himself to straddle Bruce’s thigh, cupping the other man’s face in his hands.

Bruce looked up at him with glazed eyes as he leaned down and kissed him again, then worked up the nerve to whisper in his ear, “Do you want to move this to the bedroom?”

“Wait,” said Bruce, steadying him with hands on his waist. “Wait a second.”

Clark pulled back, suddenly uncertain. “I… I mean… if you want to.”

“Clark.” The hands running up and down his sides were soothing and steady, but Bruce’s voice had a tight, ragged edge to it, like he was barely containing himself. “I want you. So bad it hurts. But are you _sure_?”

Clark nodded once. “I’m sure.”

Bruce looked at him, then nodded. Once.

Then Clark was scrambling off Bruce’s lap, saying, “Let me just get the dishes, then we can…”

“Clark.” A steadying hand on his arm. A fond smile. “I can take care of it. Why don’t you go ahead and … get settled?”

“Do you even know how to do dishes?”

“I’m sure I can figure it out. Go on.”

Leaving Bruce to it, Clark made a quick trip to the bathroom before heading into the bedroom, his nerves suddenly rising up again, his traitorous mind buzzing away, _what if Bruce doesn’t like what he sees, what if he doesn’t like the way I feel, the way I smell, do I have too much body hair or not enough body hair, what’s “in” these days? Maybe I’m actually really gross and don’t know it…_

He quashed these thoughts, imagined stomping on them with his foot. He _wanted_ this. He’ll show Bruce just how sure he was.

Hearing the water running in the kitchen, he stripped all his clothes off, almost angrily, and left them in a haphazard pile on a nearby chair. His bed was military-neat. He’d perfected the single snap-motion that left his bedspread with sharp corners every morning. He deliberately mussed it up now, to make his bed look more inviting. Stood by the bed with arms crossed over his chest, shivering, and waited, hoping he didn’t look stupid.

“Hey, I left everything in the dish rack, hope that’s ok…” Bruce, who’d wandered in, trailed off mid-sentence with an almost comical choking sound. There was a towel in his hand, which dropped to the floor in a muffled thump. He stared.

“Bruce…”

And kept staring.

They both took a step closer at the same time. Bruce was still open-mouthed and wide-eyed, blinking up and down the length of Clark’s body, _blink-blink_.

“Bruce…?” Clark smiled nervously. Touched Bruce’s arm. Shivered. Felt his nose tickle just a second too late and sneezed.

He was mortified, but Bruce was hurriedly gathering him up into strong arms, running hands up and down his back and shoulders, murmuring, “I’m sorry, you must be cold. I’m sorry, but I can’t help staring, you’re so beautiful,” and he was shivering again, but not with cold.

Bruce was definitely talking to Pizza Clark, making him feel special and shy and wonderfully warm.

“Don’t eat me, though,” he murmured absently.

“What?”

“Nothing.” He blushed.

“Let’s get you under the covers.”

Clark gasped softly as he was lowered into bed and Bruce came to lie on top of him, the feel of Bruce’s fully clothed body an enticing friction against his own bare skin. His nipples were hard, dragging against the silkiness of Bruce’s shirt. Bruce had a leg between both of his, a well-muscled thigh against his groin.

“Is this ok? Are you alright?” Bruce was asking.

“I want you, I want you,” Clark gasped, his virgin body abuzz with a thousand different sensations, finally _alive_ in a way he didn’t know was possible.

“You have me,” Bruce said firmly, locking eyes with him. He took off Clark’s glasses and flung it to the side, the plastic clattering on the floor, and swallowed Clark’s protest in a kiss. “You don’t even need them,” said Bruce, and was kissing Clark again before he could figure out what _that_ was supposed to mean. 

“Show me what to do,” said Clark, his hands fluttering helplessly at his sides, not knowing how to proceed, just that he _ached_ and _wanted_.

Bruce started unbuttoning his own shirt. “Just do whatever feels good, Clark. You can touch me. Here.”

He brought Clark’s hands up to his exquisitely sculpted chest, and Clark shaped each muscle with his fingers, tracing over the rough ridges of old scars, stroked down Bruce’s waist with tingling palms. He helped Bruce unbuckle his belt, slide off underwear and trousers in one go, and Bruce was bared for him to see, his erection gently rising.

Clark was making noises he didn’t recognize, keens of longing, and Bruce was holding him, whispering over and over, “I’ve got you, I’ve got you.”

Bruce left burning kisses down Clark’s neck, then kissed his chest, taking one nipple into his mouth and searching out the other with his fingers, making Clark moan and arch his back as the sensitive buds were stimulated. Bruce kissed down his stomach, down the ticklish juncture of thigh and hip, then paused.

“What’s this?” he whispered, tracing the odd lines of scar tissue along Clark’s inner thigh.

“Don’t look,” Clark pleaded, and pushed gently on Bruce’s shoulder to urge him to continue, to mouth at the soft skin behind his knee, to kiss his calf and ankle. Bruce had gone down his body with soft, gentle pecks, but he went back up his body with drunken, open-mouthed kisses that left Clark whimpering with need.

Then he was lying flush against Clark and Clark’s hands came around to cup Bruce’s buttocks as they moved against each other, Bruce’s voice a soft litany, “I’ve got you, I’ve got you.”

Bruce’s hand on Clark’s sensitive cock, guiding it to rub against his own. Deep, firm strokes. Gentle at first, then continually frenzied as the pace sped up. Bruce was grunting softly, hips shuddering, and Clark was moaning helplessly, pleasure coursing through him like waves of sunshine, again and again, and Bruce felt so good against him, and he was coming for the first time with someone else, shuddering and keening, hands fisting helplessly in his sheets.

He was shaking, tears in his eyes from sensation overload, and Bruce was kissing him deeply, groaning, and he was coming too, his entire body shuddering over Clark’s like a tree in the wind.

After the wash of euphoria, he noticed that Bruce’s weight over him was crushing but good. He held on as he slipped into a deep, satisfied sleep, as Bruce whispered in his ear, “Thank you, for letting me be your first.”

The next thing he knew, he was waking up to a sunlit comforter and an arm around him, Bruce snoring into the pillow next to him. There was a bone-deep satisfaction inside him, an utterly _spent_ feeling that was absolutely wonderful.

He spent a few minutes just studying the man he loved, felt his heart clench at how beautiful Bruce was, before gently extricated himself and padding over to the bathroom for his morning ablutions. Flushed the toilet. Wet a towel and wiped himself down. Threw on a pair of gray sweatpants. Studied himself in the mirror to see if anything had visibly changed. He felt like he was glowing. He felt glorious.

He walked over to the largest window in his 600 square foot apartment, the one in the living room, and basked in the sunlight like a contented cat. He felt suddenly, ravenously hungry. He’d grown used to the lean Metropolis bagel-and-coffee mornings, but now he craved his mother’s homemade, sizzling breakfasts: sunny eggs, a giant stack of fluffy pancakes dripping with syrup and butter, thick crispy rashers of bacon with the fat melting in your mouth, a juicy ham steak oozing with honey and crusty with baked sugar, great big sausages with the skins bursting from being fried, and a mug of coffee so strong that it was like black syrup.

Bruce’s grumblings in the adjoining room signaled that he was awake, and Clark, already reaching for the flour and eggs in the cupboard to start breakfast, called out, “I’m in the kitchen!” and smiled at Bruce’s unintelligible reply, and the footfalls towards the bathroom.

Domestic life. It felt good.

The coffee was ready and he was flipping the last pancake when Bruce, dressed and washed, pressed against his back and wrapped arms around him. They both said good morning at the same time, which made Clark laugh, and they kissed slowly and languidly.

“Are you alright?” Bruce asked quietly, hand on Clark’s chin.

“I’m perfect,” said Clark, then added sheepishly, “I think I tore the sheets last night.”

“I’ll get you new ones. Nice ones.”

They kissed again.

“I have to go,” Bruce said regretfully, as Clark dished up the pancakes and eggs. Sunny side up for himself. Scrambled for Bruce. 

He felt a brief swoop of fear in his stomach, an irrational moment of panic. “Can’t you stay?” he protested. 

Bruce looked torn. “I want to. I wish I could. But I have to go.” He ate a pancake with his fingers, drank a cup of black coffee. Kissed Clark goodbye on the doorstep, lingering and sweet. Then he was gone.

Clark watched Bruce leave from his apartment window, the eggs congealing on the counter. Watched him talk briefly into a cell phone as he walked down the street and saw a limousine pull up to the corner not two seconds later. He watched Bruce leave, tracked the car visually, then mentally, as it headed north, over the bridge, through the tunnel, then steadily west into Gotham.

X

 

_Present_

 

Bruce dreamt. That same dream. Clark in his arms, in the rain. Clark was saying something, something terribly important, he was trying to make Bruce understand something, but it was all meaningless, a muffled drone that was drowned out in the rain…

_Master Wayne_

And then Clark was laughing, laughing, and he was no longer Clark, but Bruce had Joker in his arms and red rage filled his vision and his hands were wrapped around the clown’s throat, squeezing and squeezing.

“Master Wayne!”

He jerked awake in his chair, squinting at the computer’s glare like it was morning sun. He could feel an imprint of the keyboard on his face.

“What is it, Alfred?”

“It appears I owe you an apology. The facial recognition did turn something up.”

“Who?”

“Mafia.”

“Where?”

“Seaport.”

“Get me the suit.”

 

X

 

Joker perched on a stack of rotting wood pallets like a king on his throne. Harley was draped over him like a living blanket, but he ignored her chattering. Up on the mezzanine, he had an overhead view of the warehouse floor, where the journalist was curled up in a fetal position, shivering like a wobbly Jell-O.

It’d been 12 hours since the heat had been turned off. He’d be entering moderate hypothermia soon.

His eyelids were droopy, but Joker noticed that he snapped them open every time he started to drift off. Staring warily at Killer Croc, who was hunkering impatiently in the corner. Who was, ironically, the only heat source in the room.

It was a fun game to play.

Chain someone up like a dog and put food in a bowl just out of reach so they would have to crawl to eat. See how long they would need to be starved before they gave up their dignity.

Deprive someone of water, crank up the heat, and see how long they could go before drinking boiling vinegar or motor oil.

Or, in this case, lock someone in a room with his rapist, take away the heat, and see how long dear Clark could go on freezing before he crawled over to Croc for comfort.

The illusion of choice. Eat or starve. Drink or die. Be raped again, or freeze. It was delightful, making people do things. It drove them insane, making them think that they were responsible for their own suffering.

“Puddin’ haven’t you been listening to me? The Boss Man called again. He said…”

Joker shoved her off, eyes fixed on the shivering form below him. “I know, I know, Harl. Yes, I was listening.”

It was a pity he wouldn’t get to see this one play out yet. Kent was stubborn and disgustingly disciplined. Soldier boys usually were. But they all break, eventually.

 

X

It had taken some time to track Batman down, but in the end, all Lois had to do was follow the screams.

She stopped to feel the pulse on one of the many bodies strewn across the ground. Still alive.

A pained yell came from inside a seemingly abandoned restaurant. She ducked instinctively as a body crashed through the window, landing in a growing pile. Glass bounced harmlessly off her coat. She stood and quickly made her way inside.

“ _Where’s Joker?”_

_“I don’t know, man! I don’t know!”_

She shivered.

She’d faced down scarier things than Batman in the line of duty. That didn’t mean she wasn’t scared.

It was cold. Half the roof was sagging, letting flurries in. She hugged herself for warmth, then couldn’t stop thinking about Clark and whether he was cold or not, wherever he was. Couldn’t stop wanting to wrap her coat around him.

A crash form the back room. A thin rectangle of light was coming from a cracked door barely hanging onto its hinges. She steeled herself and strode in, just as the Bat’s fist slammed into his latest victim’s face with a wet thud. She took in the scene in a glance: Batman in the center of the room. Three mobsters strung up with wire, hanging upside down like hung hams. An upturned poker table. An acrid burn of marijuana in the air, mixed with cigarette smoke. Bullets on the floor, some still smoking. Posters of naked women on the walls.

She knew Batman was aware of her presence but he didn’t acknowledge her, drawing his fist back again.

“Where’s Joker?” he asked, in the type of voice that sounded calm but really wasn’t.

The mobster whimpered through a mouth of broken teeth. The fist came down, Lois flinching as the punch nearly took the guy’s nose clean off.

“Hey,” she said loudly, stepping into the light of the single bare bulb. “Wanna give him a chance to answer before you give him brain damage?”

“Sorry,” she addressed the whimpering man. “He has no interpersonal skills, this one.”

“Where’s Joker?” said Batman, then at her, “You need to leave.”

“I’m not leaving,” said Lois. Then snapped her fingers in front of the mobster. “You can talk to me or you can talk to him. I’m the good cop, trust me.”

The man’s words were blood-slurred, “Fuck you guys! I don’t… I don’t know! I swear on my Ma’s grave, I don’t know! I don’t want nuthin’ to do with Joker.”

“You’re lying,” said Batman, and drew his fist back.

“He won’t actually kill you, you know,” Lois said conversationally. “He knows how to keep punching and not actually damage you. He’s good. He’ll just keep going and going until you look and feel like hamburger, but still be aware enough to tell him what he wants to know. You’ll wish you were dead before he’d actually let you die. Talk. For your own sake.”

“I don’t know where he is, I swear. You gotta believe me. He just tells us what to do and we do it. No one crosses the Joker. He’s a crazier freak than Bats here.”

“Where does he keep his victims before he kills them?” growled Batman.

“It changes all the time, he never keeps them in the same place twice.”

“Why did he take Clark Kent?” pressed Lois. “Chapel, Marko, and Stride, they were all locals. Why did Joker want Clark?”

“I have no fuckin’ clue, you dumb bitch…” Batman stepped on his ribs. “Argh! Ok, ok! Look, all I know is that Lizzie broad used to hang with them Eastside whores. Maybe she had mob connections or something. Hell, if that even means anything. Everyone and their grandma in Gotham has mob connections. That’s all I know, I swear!”

Batman responded by throwing him across the room. Before Lois had turned around from the carnage, he was already out the door.

“Hey! Wait!” she called, running after him, grateful that she had worn flats.

He stopped abruptly, mid-stride, so that she almost bumped into him. “Stay out of Gotham,” he growled, his voice deep enough to make her bowels wriggle uncomfortably. She supposed it was easy to intimidate his enemies when his voice was modulated to make someone crap their pants. “You don’t know this place. You don’t know me. You need to leave.”

“ _Listen_ to me,” she said. “I can _help._ The police won’t listen to me, but maybe you will. I have information. About Clark.”

He seemed to hesitate. “Patch it to Alfred, and then get out of Gotham.”

She bit her lip. “Well… that’s the thing. I don’t think he’s in Gotham. In fact, I don’t think he ever left Metropolis.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading and sticking with the story! As always, please feedback and let me know what you think!


	8. Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bruce opens up to Clark. Clark meets Alfred.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No copyright infringement intended, no profits made!

_Past_

 

“Commissioner, I’m Clark Kent from the _Daily Planet_. Can you comment on the latest kidnapping in the missing children’s case?”

“No comment.” Commissioner Gordon swiveled around to grab a Styrofoam cup of coffee from a passing detective, then barked something into the phone that was jammed between his cheek and shoulder. Turned back towards Clark, still on the phone, and gave him a once-over from behind his bifocals. “Where did you say you were from again?”

“The _Daily Planet._ From Metropolis. This is where the girl was last seen and presumed to be taken, is that correct? What can you tell me about the crime scene?”

“Meh- _trop_ -polis? Hell, we’ve got enough media buzzards of our own in Gotham. How’d you even get wind of this from across the harbor?”

James Gordon was a middle-aged man with graying hair and a still-lean body. He sucked his teeth in the way of someone who’d tried many times (and failed) to quit smoking. Clark noticed that his shirt was clean but rumpled under his coat and that there was a barely-there light patch on his ring finger.

“Yeah, get two units down there…” He threw Clark a dismissive sideways glance, already turning away. “You want a quote? Wait for the GCPD press conference.”

“Not good enough, Commissioner,” said Clark, his tone just a hair past polite. “If kids are being snatched out of their beds and playgrounds, then the public has a right to know what the police are doing about it right _now_.”

Gordon stared at Clark a moment, then turned his head to mutter something unintelligible into the phone. Snapped it shut and buried it and both hands in his trench coat pockets. “I run a police station, son. The last thing I need is some exploitative story splashed over the front pages, scaring people, making them run wild with half-truths we can’t confirm. Just so you can sell papers.”

“I promise you, sales are the last thing on my mind. And if you don’t want folks panicking over half-truths, then give me the whole truth.”

“Tell _me_ something,” his voice had a tang of bitterness to it. “Since when did the yuppies over in Metropolis ever care about our city and our kids?”

“The harbor’s not that wide, Commissioner. You’d be surprised how much we care. And maybe some exposure is just what you need. Get the word out there, maybe it’ll help. People might remember seeing something, hearing something, and call it in. Talk to me.”

Gordon made a _hmm_ noise and rocked back on his heels, like he was swaying in the wind. Clark had the impression that some kind of judgement was being made. Gordon’s expression softened minutely.“ I’m sorry, son,” he said. “No comment.”

“Ok, well if you can’t talk about the missing children, then talk to me about Batman. Will the so-called Dark Knight of Gotham be involved in this case?”

Gordon was shaking his head before Clark even finished speaking. “The GCPD officially denies any and all involvement with Batman. We don’t support or condone vigilante justice.”

“With all due respect, sir, that is some major BS.”

A wry, self-aware grin. A shrug. “That’s all you’re getting out of me.”

Clark sighed as Gordon walked away, shoulder-to-shoulder with a rubber-gloved detective holding a plastic bag with a single girl’s hair in it. He wrote _no comment from GCPD_ in his notebook, then looked up when a familiar face in the crowd caught his attention.

“Bruce!” he called out, jogging over, a smile tugging at his frown, then paused when Bruce, who’d been talking to one of the uniformed officers, turned towards him in surprise, and with something very close to hostility splashed across his face.

“Clark, what are you doing here?” said Bruce, coming over to meet him halfway. That oddly hostile look was wiped clean in a second, replaced with a magazine cover smile. The rapidity of the change made Clark shiver. 

“I’m in Gotham covering the missing children story. What are you…” He trailed off when Bruce took his arm in a tight grip and started steering him down the street, away from the crime scene.

“I was just stopping by. Looks like they’re wrapping up here. Nothing more to see. Let’s get you on the train before the 5 o’clock crush, huh?” They turned the corner and Bruce started walking them towards the nearest subway station.

“Whoa,” said Clark, smiling nervously. “I haven’t seen you in two weeks and you’re already trying to get rid of me? At this point, I’ll be seeing more of Batman than you, and he dangled me off a roof last Tuesday.”

“I’ll be sure to have a word with him.”

Clark twisted in Bruce’s arms. “Hey, come on. It’s not every day I’m in Gotham. There’s no rush or anything. I actually want to look around.”

“There’s nothing here to see,” Bruce said distractedly. The subway entrance was barred for maintenance. Rather than cross the street to the adjacent station, he waved his arm for a taxi. “Why don’t we share a cab back to Metropolis, and I’ll take you out to our usual place? Traffic shouldn’t be that bad.” He nearly propelled Clark towards the curb, which only irritated him and made him dig his heels in.

“Bruce, I’m not going back. Perry put me up at a motel here through tomorrow.”

“You know, I can put you up at a much nicer room at the Grand Lux, it’s not even that much further away from Central Gotham-”

“What is your _problem_?” Clark snapped, startling the both of them with his anger. He yanked his arm out of Bruce’s grip.

“Clark…”

“Heaven forbid if I ever set foot in your city or your life, is that it?”

Bruce said nothing. His face was a blank slate.

The taxi that Bruce had signaled honked at them, a mournful blare, and the driver made an _are you getting in or not?_ gesture.

Clark stared down at his feet, red-faced, instantly regretting his words. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I should… I should go.”

He turned on his heel and walked away from the cab and his cold-faced boyfriend. He couldn’t decide if he felt better or worse that Bruce didn’t come after him.

X

He hung around the GCPD headquarters like a persistent mosquito, until one tired, bristly cop with frostbite scars peeking out from under his sleeves gave him a statement: “You’re damned right it’s demoralizing, having the Bat swoop in on our cases. People dying on our watch, kids disappearing, then Gordon going and flipping on the Bat signal like a kid crying to Mommy and the perp shows up hogtied on our doorstep like a goddamn package while us cops are still scrambling for warrants, trying our damnedest to do things _by the book_. Express delivery. Shit. It’s _shameful_.”

He sucked on a cigarette and blew the smoke out through his nostrils. Waved the orange tip at Clark. “The city belongs to the people, regular folks, y’hear me? Not costumed freaks, like Two-Face or the Joker. The last thing we need is _another_ costumed freak interfering with police work, doing stuff that’d be considered police brutality if he ever had the guts to put on a uniform. Making people lose faith in cops that put their lives on the line every day. Quote me. I dun’ care.”

Out of the eight families that had lost kids in the recent kidnappings, Clark managed to make contact with three. The first mother shrieked angry words at him when he introduced himself as press, and slammed the door in his face. The second gave him numb, police report-type answers, her red-rimmed eyes never meeting his while her husband glowered in the background in a stained white t’shirt, looking like he was one beer away from punching Clark in the face. The third actually invited him into the apartment, a boxy middle-class family condominium. Toys and books strewn on the living room floor. A toddler sprawled in his pen, like a pale, chubby piglet that occasionally wailed. She ended up mostly crying on Clark’s shoulder, “They took my baby girl, they took my baby girl,” in slurred, heart-wrenching sobs, him making gentle shushing noises, a hand on her thin, bowed back. She had no pictures of a husband anywhere in the apartment, but there were plenty of her daughter, a wide-eyed and gap-toothed kid with her mother’s chocolate hair. He nearly felt like crying himself when he left the place, and couldn’t stop thinking that the Zeto triplets back home were only a little younger than the girl in the photos. And that the young woman in his memory, carefully packaged in an imaginary filing cabinet labeled “Jalalabad,” was not much older.

He ordered coffee but no dinner at Paulie’s Diner. The _Planet_ had given him a budget for lodging but he was on his own with food. (He had a giant thermos of soup and a stack of sandwiches stashed away under the windowsill in his motel room.) The matronly woman behind the counter, whose face was as round as the pies in the display case, insisted on giving him a slice of strawberry rhubarb on the house (along with a saucy wink). He picked at the crust while chatting up the other late-night patrons, directing the conversation towards the missing children. He left the diner with a mish-mash of boogeyman theories and self-centered laments, “I can’t feel safe in this city anymore… this’ll effect my business for sure… I mean I don’t have kids, and I don’t think I ever will, but now I’m not even sure I would _want_ to, you know? 

The ugliness of the situation sat in him like a hard gob of infected phlegm as he made his way to the motor inn, making sure to stick to well-lit streets. The local law enforcement (and Batman) would have their hands full tonight. He didn’t want to distract them with a mugging on top of everything else.

Back in his room, he cranked the shower as hot as it would go, which was still lukewarm, and hopped from foot to foot trying to avoid the suspicious stains on the cracked tiles and the drain that was clogged with the remnants of strangers’ hair. The heater chugged weakly as he pulled on pajama pants and a sweater over his t’shirt, crawling into a cold bed and spreading his notes out on the pillow. Ugly notes. Dark feelings.

He scribbled for a while, in an attempt to organize, and found that he unconsciously wrote “baby girl” in the margins, and below that, “baby boy.” His mother called him that well into his thirties. On a whim, he drew the outline of a bat, like his own personal bat signal.

 _Bruce_ … He wanted Bruce with him in this dark place. But Bruce…

He’d never seen where Bruce lived, other than the transient  home that was the Grand Lux penthouse suite. Despite having a boyfriend from Gotham, he rarely spent any time in Gotham. Bruce, a regular in Clark’s own stomping grounds, never invited him across the harbor. A restaurant off the freeway, equidistant from Central Gotham and Clark’s apartment, was as far west as they’d ever gone together. He could still feel Bruce’s hand on his arm, pulling him into the subway, pulling him towards the cab, hell-bent on getting him out of the city. It _hurt_ , in an unexpected way. If home was where the heart was, then why was Bruce so insistent on keeping Clark out of Gotham?  

He drank a warm, sugary soda from the vending machine and had a sticky mouth to go with his sticky thoughts, the name _Charlotte Rivers_ popping up unexpectedly in his miry brain, like an uncooked pea bobbing up in a bowl of soup.

Charlotte Rivers was a woman with a face made for television: absolutely gorgeous. She was a reporter for _Real TV Journal_ in Gotham, and gal pals with Lois.

She also used to date Bruce Wayne.

The mere thought of her made him shiver, transporting him back to what he dubbed as Cocktail Night, in the mental filing cabinet labeled “Awkward.” (That file was pretty full.)

Cocktail Night: him, Lois, and Charlotte Rivers at a trendy restaurant, doing a dinner entirely of cocktails and appetizers. It was Charlotte’s idea: bite-sized burgers, tiny fish tacos that were more lettuce than fish, croutons the size of poker chips capping teensy ramekins of soup. Garish cocktails. Clark, who never saw the point of miniature food, sullenly nursing a beer.

Charlotte laughing and tossing waves of chocolate brown hair over her shoulder. “So,” she said, propping her chin on her hand to look at Clark. “The ex and the boyfriend finally meet. Hi.”

“Hi,” Clark replied, who honestly had no idea what to do with a statement like that. He reacted like he always did when presented with something clever and trendy, held it in his hand for a moment like a strange animal, then tried to pass it off to Lois. He stared at her for a moment, hoping for an out, but she smiled sweetly and gave him no help, the traitor.

“Here’s where I tell you: ‘You better treat him right, or you’ll have me to deal with,’” said Charlotte, mock-seriously. She wagged a red-tipped finger at him. Her nails matched her lipstick.

He chuckled nervously, suddenly disturbed. It was the look in her eyes. Pity. As if she was wishing him luck while knowing that he wouldn’t get any.

“So, what’s the scoop in Gotham these days?” said Lois, finally stepping in, and the table was launched into a conversation about murder, mayhem, and sports, and Clark breathed a sigh of relief.

But after a few more neon-colored cocktails, Charlotte, pink and loose from the alcohol, swung on some kind of Pendulum of Drunkenness from girlish and bubbly to reminiscing and morose, and she inexplicably steered the conversation back to Bruce Wayne.

“He chased me first,” declared Charlotte. She stirred her drink with a swirly straw in the shape of an arrowed heart. “I always remember that he chased me first. And of course, I let him catch me. Rich, handsome, suave. Didn’t seem to be a downside. What I didn’t know was that the chase wouldn’t stop, just slow for a while once we were together, and then keep going, except it went the other way: me chasing him.”

She laughed lowly, more of a huff than a laugh. “It was perfect for a while. Then he starts missing dates. Important ones. He’d disappear for days at a time, sometimes weeks, with no contact. Oh, he was still sweet, don’t get me wrong. Every time he missed a dinner he’d buy me something expensive, like a spa weekend or a Tiffany bracelet. But… there was always something … some part of him he held back from me. Got to when I couldn’t spend half an hour alone with him before he’d be on the phone with Alfred, all mysterious, and then taking off, all _I’m so sorry but I have to go_. And he went. He always went.”

It stung that Clark didn’t even know who Alfred was. Bruce had never even mentioned him.

The waitress came by, asked politely if everything was alright. Topped off the water pitcher. Got Lois a clean plate. Clark looked down at his lap and wished that the interruption would cause the conversation to change. No such luck.

“Not that he ever promised me anything he didn’t give,” Charlotte continued relentlessly. “He never did say he loved me.”

Clark, who meant every “I love you,” but had also never heard Bruce say the L-word, felt his heart clench.

“Bruce Wayne,” Charlotte said extravagantly. “A string of girlfriends to his name but never a wife. Always kept them at arm’s length. Always cuts them loose sooner or later…” She broke off and winced like she’d been kicked under the table.

“ _Charlotte_ ,” said Lois, then flicked her eyes towards Clark.

“Oh! I didn’t mean… I’m sorry.”

She looked at Clark. He looked down at the foam in his beer.

The useless polite litany of _Oh, it’s ok, no worries here, ha ha,_ stuck in his throat like phlegm and never made it out his mouth. The three of them sat awkwardly for a moment.

“So,” Lois said brightly. “How do you like the Monarchs this season?”

The rest of dinner was almost comically awkward, as if someone had passed gas and everyone was trying and failing to ignore it.

 

X

 

Clark was in the middle of a fitful dream when the knock came at his door. The glowing clock on the nightstand told him it was 3:36 pm, which meant that it was actually 4am.

The knock came again, soft but insistent. He unplugged the clock radio and held it up like a projectile and waited.

At the third knock, he plugged the clock radio back in. (A burglar wouldn’t bother to knock 3 times, would he?) The motel rooms all opened out onto concrete walkways that faced the exterior parking lot. Not looking forward to a face full of wind, he wrapped the cigarette-burned covers around himself and, shivering, padded across the patchy carpet to open the door.

There was Bruce, propped up against the door frame.

“Hi,” said Bruce.

“Hi,” echoed Clark, like a dazed cockatoo.

The dark orange of the parking lot lights illuminated the line of Bruce’s slumped shoulders. Even through sleep-burred eyes, Clark thought that the other man looked profoundly weary.

“I uh… I asked Reception what room was yours. Can I come in?” The question was a hoarse whisper, almost lost on the wind.

“Of course, of course.”

He backed up so Bruce could slide sideways into the room, brushing up against him, so they shuffled into an embrace by the time Clark closed the door. Instead of walking past him into the room, Bruce held him close for a moment, his long, long arms encircling Clark and the extra layer of blanket swaddling.

“What’s the matter?” whispered Clark. Then drew back. “Bruce… are you _hurt?_ ”

It wasn’t a sound of pain, but he’d felt an invisible tremor going through through Bruce’s body when he pressed against Bruce’s ribs under his coat.

“It’s nothing,” Bruce said against Clark’s hair. “Nothing at all.” Then his mouth came down on Clark’s, a deep murmur of a kiss. Something drunk and desperate about it.

“Bruce, what is it, what’s wrong?”

Instead of answering, Bruce released Clark and went to sit on the bed, slumped down and bowed, like he was deeply tired.

“Bruce, what is it, what’s wrong?” Clark kept on asking, coming to sit next to Bruce, touching those slumped shoulders, stroking the drizzle-damp hair. Bruce said nothing, just released a sigh that sounded like an animal’s dying breath.

They ended up lying down, Clark managing to slide Bruce’s coat off and draping it over themselves along with the motel blankets so that they resembled a rat’s nest of bedding, Bruce’s head on his chest, Clark propped up against the stained upholstery of the  headboard and whispering “it’s ok, I’ve got you, I’ve got you,” in the same soothing Mom-cadence he remembered from childhood.

He could feel himself getting groggy, but could tell that Bruce wasn’t. Not even close. Bruce was stiff as a board in his arms. Not wanting to fall asleep, he reached out to flick on the clock radio (now at 2:17), hand brushing past his notebook so that _baby girl_ whispered to him in the ruffling of pages. “Hey, want to listen to some really awful pop music?”

What he got was the local news station.

“… no statement yet from any of the families but law enforcement has confirmed that that the missing children have been found …

Clark sat up straight and nudged Bruce. “Hey, listen to this.”

“Batman confirmed to be involved in the recovery… criminal formerly imprisoned at Akrham Asylum, known as Scarecrow… fight ensued… children found in a basement cellar. The scene is restricted by the police, but what has been revealed so far is something out of a nightmare… all children are physically fine… As far as we know, no signs of physical trauma or abuse…”

“They’re alive,” breathed Clark.

“No signs of physical trauma or abuse,” Bruce parroted hollowly, his face buried in the crook of Clark’s arm. “But mentally... gone. Completely gone.”

Clark looked down in surprise. Then shivered.

 _Baby girl, they took my baby girl_ …

Was that why Bruce had stumbled here, half-dazed in the middle of the night? Was he watching television, perhaps listening to the radio, unable to sleep, when he heard the news, which unsettled him so badly that he drove all the way here to lie in Clark’s arms like he was mortally wounded?

He cuddled Bruce for a moment, then nudged him with an elbow. Poked him in the calf with a foot. “Bruce, they’re alive,” he said firmly. “As long as they’re alive, they can heal. They can go back to their families. If that’s not something to celebrate, I don’t know what is.”

He pushed himself up to a sitting position and flicked on the TV. Flipped past 1940’s cartoons and late-night infomercials to the 24-hour news channel. Flashing lights and police tape. A sinister-looking house. Uniforms. The distant silhouette of a man that could have been Commissioner Gordon.

“How much longer are you here for?” said Bruce.

“I’m supposed to be checking out tomorrow,” said Clark, fingers clicking away at his Blackberry. “But I’m sure Perry will let me-”

“Check out tomorrow,” said Bruce.

Clark’s thumb paused over the “send” button.

“Check out tonight,” ammended Bruce. He sat up. Twisted around to face Clark. “Come to the Lakehouse.”

“The Lakehouse? You mean…?”

“My lake house. Yes. Stay with me. Alfred or I can drive you into the city whenever you need.”

“Uh… Alfred?”

“My butler.”

“You have a butler?”

“Are you really that surprised?”

“W-well, no, but…”

“Let’s go.”

“Like… right now?”

Bruce stood with sudden energy and shucked off Clark’s blanket. “Get your stuff.”

“W-wait a minute.” Clark drew his knees to his chest, his angry words earlier that day replaying in his head. “Bruce, you know you don’t have to. If this is about what I said earlier…”

Bruce searched around for a moment, found Clark’s battered suitcase under the bed, pulled it out.

“I’m not trying to force myself into your life,” said Clark, a line he’d been practicing since that afternoon.

Bruce was pulling snap-button flannel shirts off the hangers in the closet and stuffing them into Clark’s suitcase.

“I’d never try to change you,” said Clark, wishing Bruce would stay still and listen to his darned speech.

“Maybe a change is in order,” said Bruce, picking up the gargantuan thermos from its place on the windowsill. “And I _do_ want you in my life.” He shook the thermos. Sniffed the contents. “What’s in this, soup?”

He tossed it onto the pile of shirts and zipped the suitcase in two quick jerks. Ignored the sad stack of cheese sandwiches in the brown paper bag, leaving that for the housekeeper to dispose of. Gestured to Clark. “Let’s go, c’mon.”

“At least let me get dressed!” Clark protested.

 

X

 

Bruce kept half his attention on the road and half on Clark, who’d fallen asleep against the window of Bruce’s Aston Martin, as they flew down the lone strip of road that led to the Lakehouse, the dark sentries of old buildings giving way to trees and wavy hills, leading away from civilization to the special kind of solitude that only the very wealthy could afford.

The horizon was just starting to pale when they pulled onto the property, and the damp wind was blowing off the lake towards them in gusts so that Clark, blinking sleepily as he climbed out of the car in his pajama pants and sneakers, shivered exaggeratedly and burrowed his face into Bruce’s shoulder as they made their way inside.

He perked up by the time Bruce made a fire in the grate and put a mug of coffee in his hands.

“You live here?” Clark breathed.

“When I have to,” said Bruce, trailing after him as he slurped his mug and wandered barefoot from room to room on heated floors. There weren’t many doors. The entire house was made of wide, open rooms that blended seamlessly into each other, the glass walls themselves blending into the outdoors so it felt like they were floating, a cocoon of modern comfort in the midst of rugged nature.

“My Gosh,” said Clark, hand on the glass. “We’re sitting on top of a lake. There’s water under my feet. And not a single other house for miles.”

Bruce smiled to  himself. Clark’s vowels always got nasally whenever he was excited. _My Gawsh, naht a single house for miles, prolly, what a pretty pit’cher._ It was cute. 

“I didn’t even know there was a lake here.”

Bruce decided not to tell him that it was actually a manufactured lake, a man-made watery layer of deception, covering up the five hundred feet of tarmac that led to the Batcave.

The sun was on the verge of rising. It was the magical, muted time of day where the world seemed to be holding its breath. The birds hadn’t started their day-time squall yet. Everything hovered between two worlds, night and day.

Then, Clark turned to look at him, smiling as open and honest as a blooming flower, and his profile was washed rose and gold by the creeping sunrise. Bruce felt a sudden swoop of vertigo and thought _this is exactly how it should be. This is right._ It was like stepping into a warm bath.  It was like coming home. And wasn’t that anyone’s heart’s desire? Home?

He could see the rest of his life played out before his eyes: Clark at the window day after day, soaking up the sunrise, perhaps with a throw around his shoulders that matched the one on Bruce’s fireside sofa. Clark’s favorite news channels and guilty-pleasure movies playing on the three TV screens. Him and Clark, perched side-by-side at the breakfast nook each morning. Bright days. Warm nights.

It was wholly unlike himself to think this way. He was usually pragmatic to the extreme. Cold facts and hard truths. But it was one of Clark’s superpowers, he turned Bruce into a dreamer.

The image was so tantalizing it hurt. Real women had sashayed around the house, ran their fingers over the furniture, and leaned against him by the fire place, but the imaginary vision was somehow more real. It outshone reality. Especially the bits of reality that he’d purposefully omitted from his daydream, the darkness and the disguises.

Bruce watched Clark fling himself onto the sofa, yawn exaggeratedly and smack his lips once or twice, and knew that he was ruined. That any no other type of love would be enough again. _I wish it had been you, only you_ , he thought to himself.

He pulled Clark up by the arm and dragged him through a nickel tour of the rest of the house, ending up at the bedroom.

“Shouldn’t you carry me over the threshold?” Clark teased, then yelped in surprise when Bruce tackled him around the middle, sweeping him off his feet and heaving him over his shoulder to carry him across the room and toss him, bouncing, on the bed. Another one of Clark’s superpowers: he made Bruce do stupid and spontaneous things.

“I want you,” he pleaded.

Clark turned in his arms, tilted his head up and welcomed Bruce’s mouth on his. “I want you too.”

They shed clothes all over the bedroom floor, kissing as they shucked off sweaters and t’shirts, pants and underwear. Bruce knew, with complete honesty, that sex with Clark wasn’t great in the traditional sense. No porny, screaming-to-the sky orgasms, or touches that felt like electrical currents. Clark was gangly-limbed and inexperienced in bed. But he was honest and trusting beneath Bruce, like a flower opening up to the sun. And that was the hugest turn-on. The warmth of him. Awkward and uncoordinated, but desiring. Every little sigh of pleasure was a surprise, a new experience.

“Bruce…” Clark straddled him and was moving Bruce’s hands to cup his buttocks. “Could we…? I want…”

“Want what?” Bruce teased.

“Why don’t we… you know,” Clark nearly whimpered.

“Not in the slightest,” said Bruce, then flicked off Clark’s glasses, which he loved to do just so he could see Clark get pretend-mad at him. A wrestling match ensued, which Bruce let Clark win.

Panting slightly, straddling Bruce triumphantly, Clark leaned in and nipped Bruce’s chin, kissed his jaw. “I want you inside me,” he whispered, the words pornographic but the voice shy and shivery, and _Good Lord,_ that combination sent a jolt of arousal straight to his groin. He felt himself stiffening against the inside of Clark’s leg.

“I think we should wait,” was what came out of his mouth, instead of the million dirty things he wanted to say, and he steadied Clark with a hand on either side of his hips, _whoa there, slow down,_ instead of flipping him over and thoroughly fulfilling that request.

“For what?” chuckled Clark, and wiggled slightly, which _really_ wasn’t doing much for Bruce’s self-control.

For what? Bruce himself didn’t know He’d never hesitated before. (Two consenting adults, mutual attraction, and all that…) But this somehow, was different.

The word _Consummation_ popped into his head. Popped out of nowhere amongst the neat orderly compartments of his brain. _Consummation_ , and with it, a sour, putrid thought about himself: _unworthy_.

But Clark was kissing his way down Bruce’s chest, petting his way down Bruce’s sides, and almost shyly took Bruce’s cock in his hands, looking up with those big, blue eyes. “I just… really want to, Bruce. I want you. All of you. Could we…? Please?”

And any and all uncertainties were flying the hell out the window.

“Are you sure about this?” whispered Bruce, a last-ditch attempt, and when Clark nodded, he pulled Clark close and kissed him long and deep. He glanced at the nightstand drawer, where he kept a single shameful box of condoms. “I promise you I’m clean,” he said. “But if you want, I can…”

“I’m clean too,” said Clark, eyes wide. “I took a shower just a few hours ago.”

“No, that’s not what I… hah.” Bruce exhaled a soft puff of laughter into Clark’s shoulder, a damp sigh, and wondered how someone so sinfully beautiful could be so innocent. Not wanting to spoil the moment, he tilted Clark’s face to his own, kissed those lips again, then said, “I’d never hurt you, Clark. Do you trust me?”

Clark nodded. “Of course. Always.” And Bruce felt his heart contract painfully and sweetly.

They simply cuddled for a while, Bruce stroking up and down Clark’s flanks and thighs, gently over the mound of his ass to get him used to the touch. Then, his let his fingers stroke lightly down the cleft of his buttocks.

Clark sighed breathlessly and let his legs fall open, and Bruce slid his hand under a knee, gently bending the leg upwards towards his chest, to expose the virgin entrance. He applied lube to his fingers, hating the clinical crinkle of plastic and tossing the tube over his shoulder as soon as it was done.

Clark was expectedly tight, tensing up when Bruce massaged his puckered entrance with a slick fingertip, but he gasped and arched when Bruce simultaneously took his cock in his mouth. His face transfixed with pleasure, he fisted the sheets and keened as Bruce entered him, finger by finger, and he was so hot and tight that it took a sweet, heart-thumping eternity for Bruce to stretch him, head bobbing up and down on Clark’s cock.

“Oh, Bruce…” Breathy moan. An ungraceful bleat of pleasure, so far from the oil-slick cries of pleasure in a pornographic movie, but setting Bruce’s blood on fire more than anything else every could. Mouth red and bitten, open wide, dark head tossing on the pillow. “I’m close…”

A helpless shudder, a tensing muscle, and Bruce stayed right where he was, swallowing Clark’s come and pleasure, rocking with the waves of orgasm, his own cock rock-hard against the sheets. Clark came down from his high with a broken moan and he was slick and loose around Bruce’s fingers, and Bruce withdrew gently to leave him there for a moment, going to the bathroom to rinse out his mouth.

When the returned, Clark had rolled onto his front, sprawled over the sheets like a boneless mannequin. His face was pink and angelic, the perfectly debauched virgin, bathed in rose and gold, and Bruce almost left him there, planning to just cuddle them both to sleep, and ignore his own still-erect cock. But Clark was turning around to look at him, pleading, “Bruce, please, I need you, I need you now,” and his entrance was open and slick and inviting, nearly red with stretching, and he could think of nothing but lying himself down between those long, lean legs, and thrusting into that tight heat.

So he draped himself over Clark, mouthing and stroking the curve of his spine, and then knelt between his legs, hands on Clark’s hips to position Clark onto his hands and knees, and gently, inch by inch, entered him, savoring every whimper and gasp and shudder of pleasure. It was agonizing, taking it slow, those first crucial minutes – _Bruce.. oh, it’s so… It’s ok, Clark, just relax, I’ve got you…_  but then he was _inside_ Clark and he slumped forwards with a deep groan, Clark twisting to kiss him, their hands intertwined on top of each other, and he thought: _Consummation._

X

 “Will you ever tell me about these?” said Bruce, voice husky from post-coital bliss, running his fingers over the scarred inside of Clark’s right thigh. His head was pillowed on Clark’s stomach, Clark’s fingers carding through his hair. They were both fighting a losing battle with sleep, limbs lazy-loose, eyes drooping.

Clark squirmed a little. His penis, resting limp on his left leg, stirred from the closeness of Bruce’s hand. 

“What about your own war wounds?” Clark whispered. He traced a smattering of scars down Bruce’s shoulder. There were more down his torso. A few on his thigh and the back of his calf. Knife and bullet wounds, and the occasional dog bite. “It’s ok,” he said, when Bruce didn’t answer. “I understand. I do. I still get nightmares sometimes.” And Bruce knew that Clark was talking to him like he was a brother in arms, that he was conjuring up overseas locations to which Bruce might have been deployed. For a moment, he wanted to believe that lie, that _yes_ , he wasn’t so different from Clark. They were the same.

“Someday, I’ll tell you about my wars,” he said. And meant it. Not today, but Someday.

His fingers returned to the object of their focus. Razor-thin lines of scars that ran horizontally along the insides of both thighs. Newer, pinkish ones layered on top of old ones. Some jagged. Some straight.  “These aren’t war wounds,” he said. When Clark didn’t push him off, either physically or verbally, he forged ahead to the question they were both expecting. “Did you do this yourself?”

Clark sighed softly through his nose. “It’s not what you think,” he said. Which wasn’t really an answer.

Bruce propped his head up on an elbow and looked up at Clark, a silent inquiry.

It was a long moment before Clark spoke. “Do you know what my biggest fear is?”

Bruce shifted up the bed to lie next to Clark, taking his hand. A wordless request: _tell me_.

Clark’s head came to rest on Bruce’s shoulder. “When I was twelve, I found out that I was adopted. Not many people know.”

He swallowed, as if bracing for something unpleasant.

“I don’t mean that my parents went to an adoption agency, or signed up to be foster parents. They literally found me on their doorstep. In a field, actually.”

Bruce tried to envision the man from the family photos he’d glimpsed in Clark’s apartment. The kind, weathered-looking man who didn’t look a thing like Clark, perhaps waking up in the middle of the night at a baby’s thin wail, shaking awake his wife, the two of them, flowery nightgown and striped pajamas, slipping downstairs and opening the door to find a baby in a basket. That baby growing up, perhaps a line of pencil-markings on the kitchen wall to mark his growth spurts. Baseball and field trips. Baby teeth. Then, at 12, Clark finding the adoption papers after rifling around in his mother’s drawers, perhaps looking for a misplaced permission slip.

“I have absolutely no idea where I came from. If someone had left me at an orphanage and said ‘here, this one is an accident, take it from me’ well, at least that’s _something_ , right? Even if I was a mistake. A human being left me at the adoption agency and spoke to someone there. I’m real. I come from somewhere. But the way the found me, it’s like I fell out of the sky.

“Ever since I found out, I’ve felt… unreal. Like I was never meant to exist in this world. Like I can disappear at any moment. That’s my greatest fear. That I’ve no right to exist. That I’ll disappear.”

His eyes refocused and flicked over to Bruce. “What’s your greatest fear?”

A shot in the dark. A scatter of pearls. His father’s dying breath. Martha…

If injected with Scarecrow’s fear toxin, was that what’d he see?

“Powerlessness,” said Bruce.

Clark stared at him a moment, searching. Then kissed his jaw, removed Bruce’s hand from between his legs, and whispered, “Someday, I’ll tell you about my own wars.”

His face was no longer bathed in rose and gold. Cold light of day, so to speak, was streaming in from the bedroom window, highlighting the angles in his face. Bruce was foolish to think that Clark was a just a simple pleasure, easy and comfortable. Foolish and hypocritical. Everyone had their skeletons, even Clark.

 

X

 

Clark was already up by the time Bruce was awake. He could hear the muffled noise of the TV at the other end of the house. The kitchen sink was running.

Bruce’s limbs ached as he went to the bathroom to pee, shower, and shave, the short distance seeming long and exhausting. He popped two pills from the medicine cabinet and swallowed them dry. The fight from last night came back to him in twinges of pain. A pulled shoulder. Aching muscles. A wrenched thigh muscle.

Scarecrow. Maniacal ramblings cut short with a punch to the sternum. The hot satisfaction of seeing the freak crumple burning in his gut like a shot of cheap whiskey, and accompanied by the same queasiness whiskey always gave him afterwards. Scarecrow hadn’t gone down easy, but he’d gone down.

The cellar. The children. Kids that should have been wailing and crying, but were instead silent. Blank stares.

He heard voices. They were crowding into his thoughts like water battering against stone. Alfred’s clipped British cadence and Clark’s cheery drawl.

He stepped out from the bathroom in a robe, toweling his hair dry, trailing steam and bad thoughts all the way to the kitchen.

Alfred’s prized coffee machine was burbling away on the kitchen counter, filling the air with a smoky-sweet smell. A weak patch of sun was shining through the window.

Clark leaned on the island with a bowl of cereal, chatting with Alfred, who was delicately assembling a plate of sandwiches. It was almost unsettling: Clark in a knock-off Starfleet t’shirt and sweatpants, Alfred  in his standard kitchen attire, button-down and waistcoat, neatly pressed trousers (a stiff apron over the whole ensemble distinguished it as “kitchen”). Especially since Alfred was doing that thing, grinning without actually seeming like he was grinning, which was always a bad thing.

Clark saw him and looked up, smiled a mega-watt smile over the bowl of his cereal, and said “Hey,” kind of breathlessly. Everything else faded for a frighteningly beautiful second, and Bruce’s heart pounded in his ribcage like an angry fist.

“Hey,” he said.

” _Hey_ ,” Alfred chimed in incongruously, popping up between Bruce and Clark like a cheeky jack-in-the-box. Then, more congruously, “Good morning, Master Wayne.”

“Right,” he said, raising an eyebrow at his grinning-but-not-grinning butler, then deliberately stepping around the island so he was on Clark’s other side, Clark automatically swiveling around so that he was chest-to-chest with Bruce, who slid an arm around his waist.

“So, you’ve… met,” said Bruce.

“Indeed we have,” said Alfred. He positioned a honed kitchen knife over triple-stacked sandwiches, angled it with surgical precision, then sliced downwards, producing six perfect triangles. “I came in and heard someone doing laundry. Thought it was an intruder at first.”

“An intruder who does laundry?”

“An intruder doing laundry is astronomically more likely than _you_ doing laundry, sir.”

Clark made a snorting noise into his milk and Bruce shot him a look: _traitor_.

“The fact that we have a laundry is news to me,” said Bruce. “I thought the elves laid out new clothes every night and sometimes after lunch.”

“Elf Pennyworth, at your service.”

Clark actually _giggled_ and bumped shoulders with Bruce, who didn’t realize he had a big, dopey grin on his face until he caught Alfred’s poorly-concealed smirk.

“And once he was sure I wasn’t after the family silver,” said Clark, “we’ve been hanging out ever since. He’s been telling me all kinds of stories about you.”

“Oh, _really_?” said Bruce. “What stories?”

“Just the ones that amuse me,” Alfred said under his breath and the sound of sloshing juice.

“What was that?”

“What was what, sir?”

He slid a plate of sandwiches and star-cut strawberries towards Bruce. “I made your favorite,” he said, in an exaggeratedly babying voice. “Even cut the crusts off.” A murmur of a smirk across his lips, before he nodded at Clark. “Mr. Kent, you’ve been lovely company.”

He sauntered out of the kitchen with a spring in his step, calling back, “I’ll be out for groceries. For the _rest of the day_.”

Clark bit down on a grin, then waited for the front door to click before turning into Bruce’s embrace and eagerly kissing him, mouth was warm and inviting. He felt his way up Clark’s back, rumpling his t’shirt, memorizing each knob on his spine.  

“How you doin’?” he whispered, his smile loose and lazy.

Clark nodded. “Doin’ good.”

“How are you _feeling_?” Bruce asked gently, cupping Clark’s chin, thumb pressing on the dimple like it was a button.

“I feel perfect. I always feel perfect with you.”

Always perfect. There was no such thing. But Clark had a way of making Bruce forget that.

His hands gravitated lower, gently cupping Clark’s rear, drawing out a soft gasp. A thrill up his spine, when he realized Clark wasn’t wearing underwear underneath.

“Are you… ok? Any pain? I didn’t hurt you, did I?”

“No, of course you didn’t. I’m just… a little sore.” Clark flushed, biting his lip. His face dipped into Bruce’s chest. “I like it, the way it feels. Feels like you’re still there.”

His breath quickened. He dipped his head and caught those pink lips, still damp, and kissed them, gently prodding with the tip of his tongue so that Clark sighed and shivered in his arms, opening his mouth so Bruce could slide inside and taste him. 

His stomach rumbled. Moment killer.

Clark laughed softly against his neck, breath dampening the skin there. Pushed back a little.

“So. That was Alfred. Your butler.”

Bruce nodded, then smiled fondly. “He’s really more of an old friend. And like an old friend, he tends to…”

“Bust your chops?”

“Yep. Do you want a sandwich?”

“Only if the crusts are cut off.”

They gravitated to the living room, sandwiches in hand, and Bruce noted, half with concern and half with satisfaction, that Clark sat gingerly into the couch cushions and snuggled sideways into Bruce.

He saw that Clark’s laptop was already open on the table, idly whirring. Notes sprawled out.

The TV bleated mournfully at them, a string of bad news. Scarecrow again. He wished Clark would change the channel. The glassy eyes of a child stared at him from the television screen. Parents in the background with matching pained expressions. A casually dressed doctor talking to the blond girl, who was as responsive as a doll.

“Perry took me off the story,” Clark said quietly.

“Oh?”

“Yeah.” He had the look of someone who was upset but trying to keep his chin up. Bruce stole his coffee to make him smile.

“Any reason why?”

“Because he sent me in to do a human interest story. Now, it just became breaking news. Lois has more experience as a police reporter.”

Bruce offered Clark a sandwich triangle. He shook his head, _no thanks_.

“Are you gonna be ok?” said Bruce, massaging the back of Clark’s neck.

“Yeah,” said Clark, leaning into the touch like an arching cat, then looked at him with piercing blue eyes. “Are you?”

“Me?”

A hand on his arm. “Bruce. I know you’re shook up about this.” The ensuing silence implied: _you can tell me about it. I won’t judge._

He averted his eyes from the TV. He wanted to snatch up the remote and turn it off. Anything to get those glassy doll eyes out of his mind. And Scarecrow’s furious, mask-muffled screaming, _No, my work isn’t finished yet!_

“I don’t like seeing kids suffer,” he said. A useless platitude.

“No one likes seeing innocents suffer,” said Clark, as if he had personally witnessed an innocent suffering. “But they do.” He nodded to himself and said quietly, “They do.” He still didn’t change the channel.

Bruce idly flicked Clark’s notes on the coffee table. Froze. A penciled drawing of a what looked suspiciously like the Batwing peeked out from a beige folder. He pretended to reach for a mug, then swept open the cover of the beige folder with his arm.

Saw a surprisingly detailed, labelled pencil sketch of a what looked like a modified stealth bomber. Not the Batwing, but similar. “Is this for when your bike breaks down?” he asked dryly, and Clark snatched it from him with an annoyed, “no peeking!” but not before Bruce scanned the entirety of the drawing and the top pages of the notes in the beige folder. Clark was trying to recreate the Batwing from its brief appearances on TV. Trying to systematically catalogue the parts and analyze who would have access to them in Gotham. Price tags and material break-downs on an excel sheet.

He remembered Clark once bemoaning that he used to build planes in the Air Force, but never got to fly them.

Something close to fear bubbled up in his throat, sour and unpleasant. “Still have it out for Batman, huh?” said Bruce, masking his cold tone with a smile. Clark said nothing, just shuffled his notes together like a dealer shuffling cards, and perched them in a stack at the far edge of the coffee table, bristling with journalistic integrity. “What would you do if you ever found out who he is?”

Clark sighed and looked at Bruce for a long moment, then turned to the TV with a glare, like he wanted to melt the suited correspondent with the mic. The parents of one of the missing children appeared on screen, and his expression softened.

The mother’s makeup was slightly smeared. The father was jittery. Both of them trying to put on a brave face as they gave their statements, _We’re waiting for our son to be released from protective custody, we’re waiting to take him home,_ then directly at the camera, _We’re coming for you, Baby Boy, we’re coming for you._

“If I saw Batman, I’d thank him, actually.”

Bruce swallowed. “Oh yeah?”

“He saved those kids. It doesn’t matter how immoral I think he is. He saved them. Eight kids. Eight families. That’s all that matters.” He made a funny shrugging motion. “I mean, ok, he did also pull me out of the fire once or twice, but then there was that time he dangled me off a roof…”

“Pretty sure you had that one coming, Clark,” said Bruce, before he could stop himself.

Clark raised an eyebrow as Bruce crammed a sandwich in his mouth. “Or he’s just a jerk who won’t answer my questions when I ask nicely.”

Bruce snorted in surprised laughter.

“Don’t laugh, I’ll get him one day.”

“I’m sure you will.”

He snuggled into Bruce’s chest and finally, mercifully, started to channel-hop.

Bruce finished his sandwich. Clark slurped up the dregs from his cereal bowl. They washed their dishes together. He watched Clark’s bare feet on the linoleum tiles, shuffling to some unknown rhythm. His sleeves rolled up to his sudsy elbows. Tried to envision him in a dusty flak jacket, gun cradled in his arms. Saw only gentleness in those strong hands.

“You’re a good man, Clark Kent,” said Bruce.

Clark tweaked the faucet. Rinsed his hands. “Am I?”

“Yes.”

Suddenly touch-starved, Bruce wrapped his arms around Clark from behind, kissing his hair and neck. “I’ll give you anything you want,” he said, almost pleading. “Anything at all. Tell me.”

Waited for Clark to say: _Tell me you love me._

_Ask me to love you, Clark, and I’ll say it. Please ask me. I don’t know if I can do it on my own._

“I want _you_ ,” said Clark, leaning back into Bruce, nuzzling into Bruce’s neck. “Just you.”

It was a fantasy, really. Someone who wanted Just Him. Because it was never really Just Him, but Just Him and Batman. His heart ached at the thought.

Then, impulsively, he said, “Come see where I grew up.”

X

 

They drove to Wayne Manor with no real plan in mind, holding hands over the gear shift.

The driveway was long, starting at the very bottom of the hill. Someone inside the manor, peaking from behind the curtains, could see a car coming, and it would be five minutes until it actually got there. The strip of driveway was now cracked and weedy. He parked the car at the bottom of the hill, let the engine idle for a moment as he took in the crumbling face of his childhood home. He watched the house while Clark watched him. Then he killed the engine and pushed the door open before he could change his mind.

They walked out hand in hand, and picked their way through the towering wild grass, dotted here and there with wildflowers, sprigs of color, a sprinkling of lace.

It was hard getting the door open. A two-man job. The wood had warped unforgivingly into the stone.

A push, _wait hold on, lemme get my shoulder against it, wait for me, let’s go on three,_ a grunt, and they were stumbling in, snagging their feet on the entranceway rug.

It was dark. No electricity, but some sunlight still struggled in through the grimy windows. Clark flung back a few curtains, sneezing at the dust, and opened the windows to let in the crisp, cold air.

It was quiet. The kind of utter stillness that made you want to cough just to hear your own voice.

They held hands, Bruce leading, and walked a ghostly tour of the once-grand, once-beautiful manor. Everywhere was the old, musty smell of a house shut up too long, the smell of faded glory.

“This is the library,” said Bruce, and showed Clark a roomful of sheets. Cloth-covered furniture guarded dust and mold.

“This is the drawing room.” _Where my father would sit and tell me stories._

“This is the family dining room.” _Where Alfred once smashed a teacup, the morning after I took an “unacceptable” risk with my life and tried to laugh it off at breakfast._

“…and this is the main dining room.” _There was Jason’s seat. Right there on the left._

“This is the kitchen.” _Walk straight back past the range and take the first door on your right, it leads to my mother’s greenhouse. She loved tulips. My father once brought her back a new species from the fields in Amsterdam and named it after her. They were striped, like candy canes._

At some point, Clark wandered off to do his own exploring, and Bruce found himself in the main parlor, facing the wall where his parents’ portrait once hung. The oil painting now sat under a sheet, protected by two sheets of cardboard tied with twine, propped against the wall like a parcel. He traced the outline of their faces under the cloth, Thomas and Martha. The line of a jaw. The curve of a lip. A neck. Those pearls.

He felt lighter than he would have expected. Like something was being released inside of him. An unclenching. A loosening. There was a time in his life that he used to swing back and forth between two extremes: searching and pawing obsessively at old photos of his parents like an addict after drugs, and packing everything away in slouching boxes and shoving them into dark corners so that even the slightest glimpse was taboo.

Now, he felt neither. He felt, for the first time in a long time, at peace. Looking at the blank spots on the cloth where his parents’ faces should be, he smiled said softly, “I found someone.”

A swish and a thud. The sound of heavy metal and cracking wood. Bruce strode to the one of the French windows and with some effort, pulled one open.

He stepped out and shivered. The air was tangy with a storm about to break. His hair seemed to stand on edge as he strode around to the back of the house. He saw an axe propped by the woodshed. A impression of footprints on the grass. He followed the tracks to his mother’s garden.

Clark was standing there, a small smile on his face, a small bundle of freshly-chopped wood under his arms.

He started slightly when Bruce walked up next to him and bumped his shoulder. “Hey, Lumberjack.”

“I saw a kindling rack inside. It was almost empty. Thought I’d get some more for when you… well… Whenever you want to…”

Bruce smiled. “Thank you,” he said earnestly, and kissed Clark on the cheek.

“What are you thinking?” he whispered, as they looked over the neglected paths that led to the cracked and leaking stone fountain, the dried pond, the flowerbeds where weeds sprouted up in haphazard bunches like fireworks.

Clark looked slightly embarrassed when he replied, “I’m a farmboy, Bruce. I’m not thinking of flowers.”

“Tell me.”

And Clark told him of the vegetable garden at home, the trellises that his father made for cucumbers and squash and peas. His mother’s impressive collection of tomatoes, sorted by color and number of globes, sauce tomatoes on the left, paste tomatoes on the right. He talked about corn, how his Dad had inherited his corn seeds from generations back, the kernels always sweet and creamy, like yellow candy. 

Clark was still going on about corn when the storm came down on them. Not even a warning speckle of rain. Just an immediate outpouring, like someone had turned on the shower.

A yelp and a jump from Clark. They looked at each other for a disbelieving moment, battered by freezing rain, and ran for the French windows, clambering inside on muddy feet and slamming the window shut against the angry barrage outside, panting and shivering and dripping.

Clark sneezed three times in rapid succession and said, teeth chattering, “Why did we park so far away?”

“I wanted to give you the scenic tour.”

“Wanna make a run for it?”

A flash of lightening lit up Clark’s pale, water-streaked face, and the following crash of thunder rattled the windowpanes and inexplicably made him sneeze again.

Bruce looked at him a moment, then burst out laughing. 

“Hey, I don’t look that bad!”

They draped waterlogged coats over the backs of chairs and hunted for candles, matches, and flashlights. Clark messed around with the drawing room fireplace and managed to get one going.

The nearest bathroom had an ancient-looking clawfoot bathtub that spewed rusty brown water at first before it ran clear. But at least it was hot.

The tub was only big enough for one of them, Clark sitting (still sneezing) with his knees to his chest and Bruce perched, naked and shivering, on the edge while Clark sponged hot water onto his back and shoulders, rubbing him down like a horse.

They stole sheets and blankets from a guest room to dry off. Comforters to wear for warmth.

“Alfred sometimes comes by and stocks these shelves,” said Bruce, rifling around in the kitchen with Clark holding aloft the lone flashlight, then grinning triumphantly when he found a full shelf of cans: tomato soup, beans, olives, pineapple. A quick dart into the cellar provided a bottle of obscenely expensive red wine.

With a pair of tongs and a rusty Swiss army knife, they bunkered down in front of the fireplace and built a fort of sofa cushions and blankets. Stripped the labels off the cans and boiled the contents directly in the fire. Drank wine straight from the bottle.

“I feel like a hobo,” said Clark, mouth full of tomato and beans.

“Me too.”

Then Clark was grinning cheekily, “Now there’s a story. Billionaire Bruce Wayne goes bankrupt. Blows all his money on, let me see, designer socks and lottery tickets. Forced to become a hobo on the mean streets of the Palisades. Forced to drink swill like this…” he peeked at the bottle, “… this Chateau Lafite here. Poor guy. Care to give me a quote, Mr. Wayne?”

“Here’s a quote for you,” growled Bruce, and tackled Clark and his mound of blankets, rolling him onto the floor, both of them getting carpet burns on their knees, the can labels glue-stuck to their naked backs and shoulders, Clark’s indignant shouts and muffled laughter echoing off the paneled walls. Then, wet and wine-flushed, firelight dancing in each other’s eyes, their mouths found each other, their hands running down chests, arms, reaching between legs, cupping buttocks and parting thighs, no longer cuddling for warmth but for passion. Blankets were stripped off and discarded to reveal naked skin beneath.

It should have felt sacrilegious, having sex on the floor of a house with so many ghosts. But Bruce, as Clark straddled him and gasping, lowered himself onto Bruce’s cock, head thrown back in pleasure, only felt a release of joy. A warmth. Life being released into a dead house.

After the initial frenzy, they cuddled together, nuzzling into each other for warmth. They couldn’t stop touching, couldn’t seem to get enough of each other, stroking each other’s sated bodies, tangling legs together, kissing anywhere they could reach.

“Looks like we’re bunking here tonight then,” said Clark, head pillowed on Bruce’s arm. The storm howled outside, like an animal wanting to be let in.

“Looks like,” said Bruce, looking down at Clark, utterly enraptured by the way the fire lit up those blue eyes with an ethereal glow. “I’m sorry I got you into this mess.”

“Don’t be sorry. I’ve never felt safer. I always feel safe with you.”

Another log on the fire. More wine, then they made love again when the grandfather clock chimed midnight, its lonesome call an echo-y contrast to their soft moaning. They fell asleep in each other’s arms.

When Bruce woke the next morning, the fire was crackling weakly in the grate and the room was awash in the gray dawn. There was a deep ache in his lower back from sleeping on the floor. He wished he had his pills.

Clark was standing at the French windows, looking out, a sheet around his shoulders. Bruce propped himself up and simply watched him for a while.

Clark, sensing that Bruce was awake, turned and smiled over his shoulder.

“Hey.”

“Hey, yourself.” Wrapping himself in a sheet, Bruce rose, ignoring the twinges in his back, and went to hug Clark from behind, face tucked into the crook of his neck.

“You know,” said Clark, while staring pensively out the window at the drizzly sky, “when I was a kid, Dad always told me to dream big. Dream big, he always told me, dream as big as you can. I resented him for it later, when I wanted to go my own way and he wanted me to stay put in Kansas and do the safe, boring thing. Farming. But you know what?”

He turned to look at Bruce. “I don’t think I really understood what he meant, until now. It’s not _what_ you dream that makes a dream big. It’s how. Dad was just a simple farmer. Never left Kansas his whole life. But boy was he was a big dreamer. He dreamt of feeding people. He dreamt of being a good husband and father. And he did it with _all his heart_. He put his whole life into making those dreams come true. That’s what made his dreams big. And right now?” The look he gave Bruce was indescribably tender. “I can’t dream of anything bigger or better than just being here with you.”

After a moment, Clark turned in his arms so he could look at Bruce’s face. “I love you,” Clark said. And smiled like he was the happiest person in the world. “It’s ok if you can’t say it back. I love you all the same.”

Bruce’s heart was in his throat. His mouth opened, but for a moment, no sound came out.

Love is a fickle thing, said his traitorous heart. Like all emotions, it changed with the times.

The ancient, immutable grandfather clock of Wayne Manor chimed suddenly. That thing would chime forever. His noisy heirloom, standing sentry in an otherwise silent home.

Love was changeable. Home, however, was more permanent. The thought came to him like the striking of a clock, chiming into place. He saw it, a beautiful dream: Home. The garden cleared and re-planted with his mother’s tulips, but now with trellises for peas and tomatoes. Framed pictures of rural Kansas and Little League baseball games and Clark’s parents on the mantelpiece, smiling alongside the Waynes. Clark trailing barefoot through the refurbished halls of Wayne Manor with Blackberry tucked under his chin and notepad in his hand as he rattled off a phone interview. Or perhaps a trendy new Metropolis high-rise apartment, with matching home offices for both of them that overlooked the city harbor, and a helipad on the roof. Room for Bruce’s austere tastes and Clark’s quirky color choices. A duplex with a fireplace. Or perhaps a none of the above, a completely new place that Bruce would purchase, perhaps a new building he would construct just for the two of them right off the freeway, a landmark between their two cities.

So, instead of saying “I love you,” he hugged Clark close and said, “Would you make a home with me?”

“Yes,” said Clark. “Of course.”

 

 

X

 

Bruce ended up driving Clark back to Metropolis that afternoon. Commissioner Gordon had called the _Daily Planet_ and said he would only communicate with Clark Kent. Perry put him back on the story.

 

X

_Present_

 

When his dreams weren’t nightmares, they were memories. Technicolor movies on playback, superimposed on top of each other. Kansas. His father. Mother. Bruce.

His own teenaged self: _I don’t even know why I’m listening to you. You’re not my dad. You’re just some guy who found me in a field._ The last words he’d spoken to his father.

Then a blast of Texas heat. His CO’s sharp bark his ear: _Don’t pull the trigger unless you’re committed to the kill._

Dad’s hands on the stock of the rifle, helping him to aim. _One shot through the lungs, Clark. We don’t let it suffer._

Jalalabad, and the downed fighter plane. Hostile territory. The rail-thin wife of a dead militant, rifle raised in shaking arms. The marine behind him: _Fuckin’ shoot her or get out of my line of fire, Kent!_ Him, hand out and palm down, the muzzle of his M-4 tilted towards the ground, voice shaky-calm in Pashto: _please, don’t …_

Bruce’s anxious face. Bruce’s anxious voice, pleading with him. _Stay away from Arkham. Promise me. There’s a darkness there you couldn’t begin to understand._

_I’ve seen evil before, Bruce._

_You’ve seen suffering, yes. You might have even seen evil. But there’s a… special sickness in Arkham. If you love me, promise me you’ll stay away._

Then the one darkness that threatened to overshadow all the others. Croc and his salty, scaly skin. Croc’s voice, talking to him in the dark, a claw stroking his hair, _They say that fucking is the closest you can physically get to another person. I disagree. I think eating them, sinking your teeth into someone, getting a mouthful of their blood and swallowing… hah, can’t get closer than that. But since Joker won’t let me do that just yet… I’ll have to settle for fucking you._

He felt like he was something misty and floating, not really tangible, not really _real_. Like he could drift away and leave nothing behind except a sticky patch on the concrete floor.  

“Hey, wake up.”

He was floating. Empty. Meaningless.

“Hey. Come on, Clark. Wake up. I mean it.”

 _Clark_.

And just like that, he was real again. Someone had called his name. Someone other than himself had acknowledged him. He was known. He was real. He opened his eyes and was briefly disoriented, seeing his mother’s face with her lips pursed around the words _baby boy_ , before it refocused into Harley Quinn’s painted visage.

“Get up, get up,” she whispered urgently. She threw a plastic tarp around him. It smelled of welding smoke and chemical splatter, but he wrapped it close, shivering.

 “C’mon, just come _on,_ ” she said agitatedly, nearly hopping from foot to foot. “They’re gone for now, but they’ll be back. We’re getting out of here. _Get up_.”

He struggled to his feet, swaying, but she caught him with an arm around his waist. She propelled him across the floor of the warehouse, her high-pitched breathing like little squeaks in the dark, the plastic crunching between them. They passed empty, half-collapsed racks and barred windows, Clark shrinking at what lurked in the corners, but no one stopped them. No Joker. No monster in the dark. When they got to the loading dock, she looked around furtively for a moment before leaving him like a piece of precariously balanced furniture, and bent down to heave up the  rolling gate. The old metal clattered and screeched, and Clark hugged himself, looking over his shoulder, thinking for sure that it would draw his kidnappers to them like an alarm bell.

But then a patch of dark blue sky appeared and he was looking at the stars and he could barely breathe for the hope rising in his chest.

Harley hopped down four feet from the dock to the ground outside, and motioned for him to do the same. He hobbled to the edge and crouched down, then shuffle-slid to the ground next to her. The cold hit him at once, the wind billowing up the edges of the tarp and blowing up his naked body. As he shivered, she grabbed his hand, making him wince. The fingernails on his left hand had been pulled out.

She pulled hard at him, nearly toppling him, and they were running through the night like a pair of truant children, except it wasn’t a parent or a teacher or a policeman behind them, but a monster, his jailer, his rapist, his nightmare.

She led them at a frenetic pace around the back of the building, stopping at the crumbling brick corners and peaking around for signs of danger. His feet were lacerated by broken glass and stone by the time they reached the front: a sad, sagging façade with nailed-up boards for a door and metal grating on windows with no glass. The cut-steel letters mounted on the roof were half gone, but he recognized what was left: a once proud _D_ , an _SP,_ and the telltale _CHEM_.

Dow’s Specialty Chemicals. A ping went off in his brain, like he’d just found true north. Literally. He knew where he was.

There was a car idling at the curb, the trunk popped. She pushed him towards it.

“You have to get in,” she hissed. “I’ll drive.”

He stared at the yawning mouth of the trunk, his stomach suddenly queasy. She pushed at his shoulder but he dug his heels in, so they stumbled against each other. “Why are you helping me?” he asked hoarsely.

“Because it isn’t _funny_ anymore. I don’t want to be a part of this. I don’t think I ever did. Just… you hafta trust me!”

She stared back at him, her eyes glowing like a cat’s, her white features blurring in the dark. Over her shoulder, he could see the street that wrapped around the East River. It ran perpendicular to a delivery route that wound a bumpy way north, passing the nearest police station. He calculated the distance in his head, wondering if it warranted a car ride.

A low rumble of male voices from the direction of the loading dock made them both jump. Despite the cold, a sweat broke out across the back of his neck and shoulders. He sagged against the rusty bumper of the car.

He didn’t want to get in. Every instinct was screaming against trapping himself in the dark, scratchy confines of the trunk. But what he dreaded more was inside the building. Waiting for him. Hungry for him.

It was so cold. A few stray flurries of snow, as small as dust motes, fell on his eyelashes. He full-body shivered and subconsciously turned his head to the right, as if Bruce’s shoulder was there for him to bury his face in.

The brief burst of adrenaline he’d gotten from their escape was running out and he was shaking from exhaustion.

Once when he was 15, he had ridden his bike right into a clump of dead corn stalks, and the front wheel had caught, then jerked out of control. He’d gone airborne and for a sickening dreamlike moment, he teetered between the edge of two worlds: air and ground, stuck in a limbo.

He shifted his weight so that he leaned on one leg. A sharp, humiliating tear of pain from his rectum made him gasp. He panted, weakly steadied himself with a hand against a taillight. Teetered between the unknown fear and the known pain.

Harley Quinn gave him a sudden hard shove and he tumbled into the trunk, instinctively tucking his limbs in as if bracing for a fall from his bike. The lid came down with a bang.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much for reading and sticking with this story!!! Feedback is always appreciated!!!!


	9. Smallville

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No copyright infringement intended, no profits made!

_Past_

“So we used to alternate Thanksgivings with my aunt and uncle in Wichita,” said Clark, dumping a pot of boiled potatoes into a bowl. “They’d come to Smallville for turkey and pie one year and we’d drive over to theirs the next.”

The steam fogged up his glasses. It smelled like starchy blandness, like steam from the press Alfred used on his shirts.

“Right,” said Bruce, who was leaning a hip against Clark’s kitchen counter, eyes glued to the top of Clark’s head.

“Nowadays, I always spend Christmas with Mom but whenever I can’t make it to Thanksgiving, she drives over and spends it with Aunt Bea. Ever since Dad and Uncle Harold passed, they’ve been throwing together Thanksgiving dinners with some of the other ladies in the neighborhood.”

“Hmm.”

“I think they like to pretend they’re the Golden Girls.”

“Yeah…”

“Bruce, are you listening to me?”

“Here’s a question for you, why’s there a cat on your head?”

The creature in question swiveled around in the nest of Clark’s curls and hissed at Bruce.

“Oh, Jim likes to climb,” said Clark, as if that explained everything.

Bruce and the kitten gave each other matching baleful looks, before it turned away, disinterested, and parkour’d its way down, paws alighting on Clark’s shoulder, a shelf, the countertop, and then the floor. It clicked its way over to the other two in the living room corner, who were playing a lopsided game of patty-cake.

“Ah,” said Bruce, nodding as if he’d just remembered. “The roof-gutter kittens.”

“The roof-gutter kittens,” Clark affirmed, smiling fondly. The fact that Jim had ripped out a small chunk of his hair while climbing didn’t seem to bother him. He started pounding the boiled potatoes with a masher. “You know, the funniest thing happened last week.”

“Oh?”

“The building’s pet policy suddenly changed.”

“I thought you could always have pets,” Bruce lied. “What about that drool-monster you used to look after? The one that chews everything and pees everywhere?”

“Oh, Chomper was grandfathered in. And he’s not a drool-monster, he’s a sweetheart.” He spooned a gob of creamy white cheese into the bowl and stirred vigorously. “So anyway, I get this notice taped to my door saying that the building’s under new management. Effective immediately, there’s a new policy that allows tenants to have up to three pets, provided they don’t exceed 120 pounds or are ‘inherently dangerous.’” He drew the air quotes with his fingers. “Pass me the salt’n pepper?”

Bruce reached for them with blind familiarity, first cupboard on the right, second shelf, and passed them into Clark’s starchy hands.

“Next thing I know,” Clark continued, “my rent’s lowered by almost a third, the heat’s working so well I’m down to boxers and t’shirt, and I get a postcard from the old super who’s vacationing in Aruba because he got a _ridiculously_ generous retirement package.”

He turned and levelled a suspicious look at Bruce, arms crossed. “Bruce,” he said. “Did you buy my building?”

“What makes you say that?”

Clark raised an eyebrow at him. “A _cat daycare_ opened up on the ground floor.”

“Well,” said Bruce, consciously working to _not_ stammer, “if you ask me, your rent was far above the market value anyway. Maybe it was time for a reduction.”

“Bruce…”

“And I like seeing you in just boxers and a T.”

“ _Bruce_ …” Clark poked him in the chest, just as he was sidling up for a sideways waist hug. “Tell me you didn’t.”

“No, I didn’t buy your building.” Technically, the real estate company that was a subsidiary of Wayne Financial bought the building, but before Clark could detect the half-lie in his voice, one intrepid kitten jumped on the countertop and tried to steal a piece of cheese.

“No!” Clark scolded, attention diverted. “Down, Jim! _Pfft! Pfft!_ ”

He made silly puffing noises into the cat’s face that were supposed to be disciplinary, until it got bored and slunk off. He turned his attention back to the bowl of mashed potatoes, then perked up as if they reminded him of a previous train of thought.

“So anyway, Thanksgiving…”

“Mm-hmm,” said Bruce, who was more interested in kissing that ticklish spot under Clark’s right ear, a hand on the small of his back straying slightly lower.

Clark coughed slightly, his face getting pink. “Turns out this year, Aunt Bea’s visiting her niece in Florida, so Mom’ll be staying behind in Smallville. And, well, Perry actually approved me taking off a few days, so I’ll be heading back home to spend Thanksgiving with her. And… I was wondering…”

Leonard the three-legged kitten had hobbled over and was valiantly trying to scale the oven door. Clark made an alarmed tsking noise and nudged it out of the way with his foot, before unleashing the next sentence in a rush: “Come-spend-Thanksgiving-with-us-in-Smallville?”

He’d already sniffed the invitation in the air about three sentences ago, but it still gave him pause, his hand freezing mid-caress.

“Smallville?”

“Yeah, you know, take a trip with me.” Clark’s face was red, and he suspected it wasn’t from the steam. “Meet my mom. Have some home-style cooking.”

“Kansas,” he repeated, stalling.

“Yeah. Kansas.” Clark’s smile was painfully hopeful. “So… what do you say?”

He said it like it was a simple question. Yes or no.

He had the sudden image of Clark’s slumped back retreating across the ballroom floor, as he stood there with each arm wrapped around a warm, perfumed woman, the smug grin still on his face after humiliating the person he cared about. It was supposed to have been simple then too: make a clean albeit painful break. Get Clark out of his life before it was too late. But he hadn’t had the courage (or cowardice?) to see it through. With the kind of emotionalism that would’ve gotten Batman killed in the field, he’d gone after Clark and begged for forgiveness he didn’t deserve, which Clark had given with all his heart.

And now, Clark was basically asking him to “meet the folks,” and he stood with the dull shock of someone who didn’t realize he’d been driving drunk until he looked down and saw his body twisted into the car wreck, jagged metal smeared with blood.

He could feel the “no” already forming, a pre-packaged story about a Thanksgiving charity event he just _couldn’t_ miss, but it stuck in his throat.

But he couldn’t say yes either. _Yes_ was a line he wasn’t ready to cross.

He opened his mouth but before he could stammer out another inane repetition, Clark’s fingers were on his lips, soothing, “Hey, it’s ok. It’s not do or die. I mean, I’d really, _really_ like it if you could, but… well. I know it’s not your thing.”

“What do you mean by that?” Bruce mumbled, suddenly offended.

Clark shook his head. “Nothing. Just… think about it, ok? I want you to see where I grew up too.” He kissed Bruce, tasting starchy and creamy, and it hurt with longing.

They slept together that night. No sex, just sleeping. It was an unexpected luxury, just to be able to sleep with someone. And he felt a dark surge of bitterness at 3am, when he pushed back the fuzzy-worn comforter and eased himself off the luxury sheets that he’d bought for Clark’s bed, that he couldn’t even have these few vulnerable hours. That he couldn’t have a Smallville Thanksgiving. That he couldn’t say _yes_  to all the good normal things, that his life was a long list of self-imposed denials.

Despite his best efforts not to wake the other man, Clark turned and murmured, slinging an arm around Bruce’s waist, “Do you have to go?”

“Yeah.” Gotham was waiting.

He pulled his trousers, buttoned his shirt, not bothering to turn the light on. He was as familiar with Clark’s apartment as if it were his own. It was comfortable to him. Easily navigated. He was just toeing on his shoes when Clark’s voice came out of the darkness, “You’re afraid.”

It was too gentle to be an accusation, but it made him stumble, and he stubbed a toe in a room he was supposed to know by heart.

A hand pressed gently against the small of his back, right above where he’d get nightly twinges of pain. “I think you’ve always been afraid. Of what, I’m not sure. I don’t know what happened in your life to make you that way, and it’s ok if you can’t tell me yet. Truth be told, I have some secrets of my own.”

Clark draped himself around Bruce’s shoulders like a warm blanket. “But you know what?” he whispered, the words a kiss on Bruce’s earlobe. “Life isn’t meant to be lived that way.”

His eyes scrunched shut as he fought back a sudden, shocking wave of tears, face screwed and teeth gritted like a kid.

“Come to Smallville with me,” said Clark. “It’s an invitation, not a threat. You’ll love it there, I promise. What’s there to be afraid of?” A sleepy chuckle. “Unless old Mrs. Feeney from down the lane gets into the moonshine and starts dancing naked through the soybeans. Again.”

When Bruce didn’t respond, Clark kissed him on the cheek and said, “I love you.” Then let him go.

X

 

Bruce was unarmed and on defense, Alfred had his shirtsleeves rolled up and was handling the bo staff with the dexterity not usually found in men his age. It was a familiar fight pattern. Overhead swing, duck. Jab to the middle of the body, sidestep-sidestep, block the side of the staff with his palm, pull and move in for a mock-punch to the face. Repeat. Easy. More to blow off steam than actually train.

“You should go to Smallville,” Alfred remarked between exchanges. He was barely panting.

“Not this again,” said Bruce, rocking on the balls of his feet while sweat dripped off him, gathering in dark V’s at his collar and underarms.

“What’s there to be afraid of, really?” said Alfred. His words were such a casual echo of what Clark had said that Bruce suspected, frowning, that they were communicating behind his back. Alfred gestured to the nearby workstation with the tip of the staff, before circling back in a jab to the groin, Bruce easily evading. “Your train leaves tomorrow afternoon.”

“Right.”

On one of Alfred’s silver serving platters, next to a pot of coffee and a bowl of increasingly cold soup, sat a train ticket and its accompanying envelope addressed in Clark’s blocky handwriting. The letters even seemed hopeful, the pen indentations deep and deliberate. He could easily picture (though he tried not to) Clark inking out each number of Bruce’s address with care, perched nervously optimistic on the edge of his chair, maybe doing that gulping jaw motion he sometimes did when he was jittery.

He’d slit open the envelope over eggs and toast that morning, stared at the glossy red and beige ticket for a moment like it was a ticking bomb, then set it down and deliberately ignored it for the rest of the day. Until Alfred had literally served it to him on a platter.

“He bought you a train ticket,” his butler said unnecessarily.

“I didn’t ask him to,” said Bruce, deliberately callous. “Now are you going to come at me or-”

The staff whistled through the air and he backpedaled, ducking.

“As someone who deals with the paperwork and social appointments you can’t be bothered with, I know for a fact that you have nothing scheduled for Thanksgiving.”

“So schedule something,” Bruce shot back. “Some party or function, or some society crone who’s got a crush and a charity ball planned-”

Alfred made two sudden overhead swings, almost faster than Bruce could dodge, then swept low and caught the backs of Bruce’s knees, knocking him flat on his back then smacked the pointed end of the staff into his chest when he tried to get up.

“ _Ow_ ,” Bruce said flatly.

“Sir, if I may speak freely…” said Alfred, frowning down at him.

“Not exactly in a position to stop you…”

“I’ve seen this before. You find someone you care about and then before they can make you truly happy, you push them further and further away until it’s a relief when it ends. Like with Miss Rivers.”

“Alfred,” Bruce said warningly, his _so not in the mood for this_ voice, then tried and failed to push off the floor.

“But Clark is different, isn’t he? Don’t bother denying it. I’ve never seen you as happy as you are when you’re with him. As disgustingly trite as it sounds to anyone other than an old romantic like me, he puts a spring in your step.”

“I wouldn’t go that far,” Bruce muttered sullenly.

“You ate a street cart hot dog. And you told me you _liked_ it.”

It was true. He ate those hot dogs Clark liked to grab during the 1pm lunch rush, piled sky high with sweet relish and washed down with sugary pop, and didn’t even care that the fleshy-pink wieners had bathed all day in greasy lukewarm water, or that the soda was bad for his teeth. He drank cheap beer and watched stupid movies. He took meaningless walks. He licked pancake batter off his (and Clark’s) fingers without worrying about germs. He even endured the occasional Little League practice, with the perpetually sweaty kids and their food breath and sticky fingers. And _liked_ all of the above.

“He makes you _happy_. He wants to be with you despite your flaws.”

“He doesn’t know the half of it…”

“He knows more than most. And he bought you a ticket, on a journalist’s salary, no less. So why not?”

“You _know_ why not,” Bruce ground out, feeling gutted.

Alfred sighed and finally eased back on the bo staff, letting Bruce sit up with a grimace. “I know,” he said, voice soft with sympathy, as Bruce angrily swept off his t’shirt and mopped his face with it. “Meeting the mother means meeting a potential liability, means getting distracted, means emotional compromise, means making a mistake, means the world collapsing on itself. Or at least Gotham. You live your life on the defense. Always have. That’s the sacrifice you’ve made.”

He made a brief, frustrated gesture, like a curse cut short, and shook his head sorrowfully. “20 years fighting criminals in Gotham. Are you going to deny yourself for another 20?”

Bruce rolled to his feet and went for a bottle of mineral water, drank half, and dumped the rest over himself.

“You’re getting old, Master Wayne,” Alfred said to his back.

“Harsh.”

“Too old to die young at any rate, though not for lack of trying. I’m getting old too.” He twirled the retractable staff with the dexterity of a 20-year-old, and collapsed it into a baton with a flick. “I swore on your parents’ memory that I would look after you for as long as you needed me. I can’t count the times I’ve patched up wounds which would have killed a lesser man. You’ve survived everything thrown your way, including heartbreak…”

He trailed off, giving a heartbeat’s silence for Jason. “… but survival is not what your parents would have wanted for you, and I will go to the grave with my vow unfulfilled if all I’ve done is help you _survive_.”

Bruce sighed, suddenly feeling immensely tired. His body was still buzzing with adrenaline, but his mind was wiped out, like he’d been through an emotional wringer. “What would you have me do?” he asked Alfred, slumping down onto the practice mat, head between knees.

“You have two choices, Master Wayne. You can spend Thanksgiving here, and I’ll make an elaborate meal that you’ll only nibble on. Or something even lonelier, I’ll sign you up for some socialite’s charity function and you can spend the night among people who call themselves your friends but are actually strangers.”

He held out a hand, which Bruce took, and heaved the other man to his feet. “Or,” said Alfred, “you can go to Smallville for Thanksgiving and bring me back a slice of pie.”

X

 

The train station at Thanksgiving reminded Bruce of pigeons at a feeding frenzy. Toss a handful of breadcrumbs in the park and watch the birds descend into a crazed mass of feathers and crap. Stabbing beaks. Scrabbling feet.

He sidestepped a harried-looking mother with paunch spilling over the waistband of her jeans and dark roots showing at her scalp, dragging along two sugar-dazed kids, then shimmied his way past a pair of squealing embracing college girls on break, their arms forming a bridge over a pile of neon duffle bags. His back pressed against a billboard for car insurance, he observed a group of hipsters from afar, then spotted one in dark-rimmed glasses who seemed a little too earnest to blend into the crowd.

Hands in pockets, he observed as Clark smiled and spoke into a cellphone, _I’m just getting on now, I’ll see you soon, love you_ , thumbed the Off button, and wearily scanned the platform for his boarding zone. His line of vision passed Bruce and the flashing superlatives behind him – _Best Rates! Fastest Service! Most Recommended! –_ and did a double take. Then he was striding through the sea of people, making a beeline for Bruce, his cartoonishly stunned mouth giving way to a mega-watt smile.

It was like something out of an old-timey movie (or a modern movie trying to imitate an old-timey movie): the couple at the train station, smoky fog blowing in their faces as romantic music swelled, the heroine running across the platform, glossy 50’s curls bouncing as she leapt into her young soldier’s arms. The cynical side of Bruce almost scoffed at the clichéd-ness of the situation, but then Clark was walking into his arms, looking at him like he was the only person in the room – in the world – and his heart was melting, actually melting, and how’s that for a cliché?

“You came,” Clark said breathily, in a tone of voice that suggested he was about 99% sure that Bruce wouldn’t have. He tugged at Bruce’s hand. “Come on, come on, let’s board.”

“I’m not boarding with you,” said Bruce, tugging back. Clark was halfway to crestfallen until he pulled out a VIP card. “You’re boarding with me.”

“But… what about the… wait…” Clark stammered as he was steered down the platform towards the VIP section, his scuffed luggage taken and loaded for him by two crisply uniformed men.

At their reserved seats, there were two flutes of champagne waiting on a marble-topped, gold trimmed table, nailed to the floor between red leather seats, which Clark dazedly ran his hand over and then tried to pretend he hadn’t.

The Wayne ancestors had historically owned the railroad service, but had sold off shares over the years so that by the time Bruce came of age, he only retained a small minority. Nevertheless, he always had the ability to book luxury accommodations at the snap his fingers, even at Thanksgiving.

“So, we’ve got awhile,” said Bruce, planting Clark down opposite him. “Tell me how to get in good with Mom.”

“Don’t call her Ma’am, it makes her feel old,” said Clark. “Always ask for seconds at dinner. She won’t let you do dishes, but she’ll be tickled pink if you offer. Don’t be too formal. _Do_ hug at first sight. There’s a big pink cookie jar on the kitchen counter, don’t poke around in it. She hides spare shotgun shells in there. And seriously, if you value your sanity at all, don’t mention scrapbooking, or she’ll go on about it until your ears bleed. I’m not kidding. There’s a scrapbook trauma ward at the hospital for that very reason.”

“Jesus.”

“And don’t take the Lord’s name in vain.”

“Good God. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. Christ Almighty.”

“Get it out of your system, Bruce.” Then his laughing face froze, paling.

Clark heard it first. It would haunt him for years to come, that Clark heard it before him.

With the twitch-quick response of someone used to scanning the roads for IED’s, Clark leaped across the gold-trimmed table and tackled Bruce out of his seat, shouting “Get down!”

There was a deafening roar and a percussive impact that was mostly shielded by Clark’s body on top of his. It took him a dizzy millisecond to realize that a bomb had gone off. Coughing, he moved Clark’s unconscious body off him, automatically checking for a pulse. Alive, but out cold and bleeding from a superficial head wound.

The metal door to their compartment was twisted in. There were chunks of seat cushion foam flying through the air. He could make out the red glow of emergency lights. In the distance, he could hear the cotton-muffled sound of screaming.

Survival mode kicked in, he stumbled his way across the car and wrenched open the nearest emergency exit, then doubled back to heft Clark up into a fireman’s carry. He stumbled onto the platform, into waiting paramedics, who took Clark from him and tried to detain him, _sir are you injured?_

He waved them off and sprinted back into the next car, searching for survivors. He found an unconscious woman pinned under debris, then a barely conscious teen with singed hair and bleeding scalp.

_This is what you get for letting your guard down._

He extricated them both, arm over shoulder, and handed them over to the EMT’s before heading towards the caved-in middle of the train, which had evidently taken the brunt of the explosion. The train body had twisted and it was partially on its side like a wounded animal, with a jagged pucker of metal for a wound. He could hear wailing, dazed commentary from the bystanders on the crumbling platform – _I think I’m bleeding, my shoe fell off, oh God who’s dead?_ – the mournful blare of the fire alarms, and over all the noise, his own accusing voice.

_This is what you get for not always watching, always thinking. This is what you get._

Pulling his jacket over his mouth and nose, he jumped onto the tracks and tried to heave open an emergency door. The metal was crumpled in on itself. He kicked at it until it gave, but a single glance inside told him it was pointless. If there had been anyone there, they weren’t breathing anymore. A sudden burst of flame made him stumble back, then the police were pulling him back, barring him from the scene, the firefighters in their bulky coveralls shouting at him to get out of the way.

He stumbled his way back onto the platform, the station awash in dull red and flashing white, the shadows flickering on the debris-littered floor like frenetic ghosts.

There was already a reporter on the scene. Cameraman and sound technician. Perfectly applied makeup and shiny bobbed hair, looking unruffled in a world of chaos.

“… what appears to be an engine malfunction. As of now, there is no evidence to suggest or rule out terrorism. I am told that Bruce Wayne, CEO of Wayne Enterprises, was onboard the train, no evidence yet that suggests he or any other person aboard was the target of an attack…”

_This is what you get for letting your guard down. This is what you get…._

Through the mishmash of bodies, he could see Clark awake now, sitting up and struggling to get back into the train wreckage even as the paramedics restrained him, a line of blood trickling down the side of his head.

_This is what you get._

“Bruce!” Clark called out, searching for him.

And he blended into the crowd and walked away.

X

 

_Present_

 

“Here, this is what I have.”

Lois dropped a note binder down on Clark’s spongy couch, where it bounced once and sent up a cloud of cat hairs. The Bruce part of Batman wondered vaguely who was cat-sitting the kittens since Clark’s kidnapping, then remembered that a woman from the _Planet_ , Jenny was her name, had taken them home. Then his mind strayed, cat-curious, to Chomper. He could picture the jowly thing grunting mournfully by its arthritic owner’s feet, a string of drool making its way to the rug. The first time he met the dog, Clark insisted, with both hands pulling on its collar while it growled and gnashed at Bruce, that Chomper was a sweetheart, he was just grouchy.

“As soon as I heard he was missing, I made a copy of his hard drive and notes before the police snatched everything up.” She gestured to the binder.

They stood in neutral yet painful territory: Clark’s apartment. Neither of them made to sit down. Despite the lack of the TV-typical trappings – police tape, chalk outlines, fingerprint dust and sticky neon markers – the place was still under police investigation.

Lois didn’t pace the room, no foot or finger tapping, but Batman could read nervous energy coming off her nonetheless. Even though the TV was on, a buzzy source of background noise, she glared at the coffee machine as she spoke, the one that broke down every third brew.

“From what I can tell, Clark was nosing into LexCorp’s business.” She picked up a photocopied financial report with gloved fingertips. “For all that he disapproved of your _hobby_ ,” she said, throwing Batman a look, “he was a bit of a vigilante himself. At least when it came to corporate corruption.”

Batman thumbed through the documents, paying special attention to the grainy gray patches, where Clark had highlighted the original with a fat marker. In the margins, Lois had added miniscule post-it’s with her own notes.

“About five years ago, LexCorp started expanding into the canning business. Clark was the one who covered the story when Luthor announced the new product line. It was supposed to be an altruistic move, providing hunger-stricken areas with affordable food relief. He’d purchased a string of factories overseas for the venture.”

“A cover?”

She nodded. “Clark thought so.”

If Bruce had bothered to keep up with the doings of Wayne Enterprises’ former business partner, he would have thought so too. But Lex Luthor’s particular brand of shadiness, insidious and scampering like roaches that hid behind expensive furniture when the light was turned on, was the very reason that Bruce had cut all ties with LexCorp years ago. Altruism for something so mundane as food relief wasn’t Lex’s style. He preferred to spend his charity dollars building museums and shiny new libraries, schools and renovated train systems, things that bore the Luthor brand.

“It seemed innocent enough,” continued Lois. “And I think that if Clark hadn’t been following the story so faithfully, he wouldn’t have noticed anything.”

“Emotionally invested?”

“Always.” She smiled briefly, then tapped a newspaper clipping. “After only a year, the so-called canning business failed. All the factories were shut down. If you look at the books, he sank millions upon millions of dollars in the following years to recoup his losses.”

“Or so it seems.”

“Exactly. A few weeks ago, Clark pitched the idea to our editor that the canning business was _meant_ to fail, or that there was never even a business to begin with, so that Luthor could sink his cash somewhere that appeared legitimate. Clark speculated tax evasion or money laundering. Perry told him that it wasn’t news, corporations being corrupt is like water being wet.”

Batman’s lip quirked. “Smart man.”

“Clark asked to be sent to Sri Lanka, the site of one of the factories in the canning business. Perry told him to do it on his own time and dollar, then moved onto state election results.”

She poked a pen through the packet of papers like she was sifting through evidence and didn’t want to get fingerprints on anything.

“And three days later, something happened that usually only happens when all the planets align or when there’s a county fair back in Smallville. Clark Kent takes a week’s vacation.”

Batman’s insides felt cold.

He stared at the sagging couch, that still had a Clark-shaped indentation burrowed into the cushions. Pictured Clark curled up on the cushions in t’shirt and boxers, laptop propped open on his stomach, a spoon poking out of his mouth.

Himself, sweeping in on a Friday night, dropping the spare key to the apartment on the coffee table and shrugging off his coat. _Uh-oh, eating peanut butter out of the jar? Must’ve been a rough day_.

_Mrrmph_ , Clark’s sticky reply.

Action figures of varying colors and age, some of them still in their forcefully bright cartons, spread out across the table along with a digital camera. Clark, explaining between more mournful bites of peanut butter, that he was auctioning them off online to get money for a plane ticket to Sri Lanka. _I hope I won’t have to dig into the comic books._

Then, an impulsive second later, Bruce had his phone out and clicking away, a first-class ticket purchased on the spot. Clark (who rarely allowed Bruce to spoil him) looked up, goggle-eyed when he realized what had just happened, _Bruce, you can’t just…!_ An ensuing grapple between the two of them, Bruce grinning smugly and holding the phone just out of reach. Clark, surly and defeated, but voice warm with gratitude, _I’m paying you back._ Bruce: _In what, frequent flyer miles?_

“I found this itinerary on his computer,” said Lois, snapping up a print-out of a trip to Sri Lanka. The trip that Bruce himself had funded, while completely ignorant of the consequences.

“He was all hush-hush after he got back, wouldn’t tell me or Perry anything about it. I’m guessing that he took it upon himself to check out Luthor’s factories, maybe turn over a few stones, get some stories from the locals who might have been onsite. I’m guessing that he either found what he was looking for…”

“…or he found something worse.”

“Yeah.”

He pictured Clark heading into Sri Lanka with a camera strapped to his chest and a head full of righteous, intrepid fury. Heroic journalist pose right off the plane. Climbing over the chain link fence to a long-abandoned factory. Picking his way through out-of-date punch presses and scrap metal. Then, _ding_ , the eureka moment. A cracked safe or an old desk with incriminating papers. Perhaps an interview with a lonely janitor, who’d been hired to sweep the abandoned factory once a week and could swear, on record, that the punch presses never pressed, that the conveyor belts never chugged along, that there never any workers hired. Proof that the whole thing was a front, that there were never any canned beans or tinned meat going to hungry people. To Clark, an unforgivable sin.

(Knowing Lex Luthor, crooked financials was jellybeans compared to what LexCorp was actually capable of. )

“Turn that up,” Lois said suddenly, then leaped for the remote control herself and dialed up the volume, just as ANOTHER JOKER VIDEO RELEASED scrolled across the bottom of the news channel. The screen flickered and went grainy, like the beginning of an amateur horror flick.

Though he’d already seen the footage days before, Batman forced himself to watch it again. Joker, dressed in a lab coat, apron, and gigantic head mirror, leaning over Clark, who was tied to a chair, with a pair of pliers. Fingers on Clark’s jaw, moving the pliers closer and closer to teeth, drawing out the anticipation, before relenting at the last minute, _actually, I like your smile. I think I’ll keep it, for now. But since I’m all dressed up, I might as well remove something…_

Then the knife. The fingernails. Scrape, scrape, five times in a row. Clark, teeth gritted and obviously in pain, but refusing to scream until the thumb, a slow and steady _peel_ of the knife, and his mouth was open but it was a laugh that came pouring out. Then the blood-slurred words, _if you’re trying to torture me, you could use a few pointers_ , before the screen went dark.

“Oh my God…” Lois, as if all energy had finally run out, sank down on the cherry-red recliner, the cushion dipping and sighing along with her. She hugged herself, her face ashen.

“Are you alright?” Batman offered

“I brought plastic bags,” she said in a thin voice, looking around like she was lost. “Thought I’d clean out his fridge. Wipe down some countertops. For when he comes back. If he even comes back…”

“So you think Luthor’s behind this,” he said abruptly, cutting off that train of thought.

She nodded numbly.

“And Joker?”

She shrugged. Swiped her fingers across her forehead like she was trying to pull away cobwebs. “What would a Gotham lunatic like Joker want with Clark? That’s what bothered me from the start. The others… horrible to say, but they actually made sense. If Joker wanted revenge on Gotham, then he would have targeted Gotham citizens.”

Batman turned away from her. A tiny, silvery thread of memory was tugging at his mind. _Everyone and their grandma in Gotham has mob connections._

From the mouths of criminal scumbags, Batman thought grimly. “He didn’t want revenge on Gotham. He wanted revenge on the mob. He escapes from Arkham and makes a triumphant return to his little underworld, only to find that it’s not his underworld anymore. They broke up his holdings when he was gone. In revenge, he makes an example. Several examples.”

He paced the room, the stiff edges of the cape hissing on carpeted floor. His synapses felt frazzled. Things were lining up, connecting, but they were connections that he should have made long ago.

Clark was like a strong drink. He gave Bruce that warm, silky smooth shot in the stomach. Made him feel safe, that the world was alright. But like a drink, he also dulled the mind, numbed the senses.

_This is what you get…_

“Lizzie Stride knew the eastside girls. Probably related to someone high up in the trade. Serge Marko… no mob activity himself but his family’s involved with the illegal arms trade. Alex Chapel. Also no criminal record but indirectly involved. Joker was targeting those connected with the mob. Family members.” 

His stomach curdled briefly as he remembered a grisly story Clark told him about old-school farming. To keep rabbits out of the vegetable patch, you catch one and skin it, then leave it out on a stake like a fleshy scarecrow for the other rabbits to smell and see. They keep away after that.

The image of Serge Marko’s partially skinned body came to him, swinging lightly in the breeze. A warning. Keep out of my vegetable patch.

“They started disappearing long before Clark was taken,” said Lois, wringing her gloved hands. “Even before Clark got back from Sri Lanka. Joker was never targeting Clark.”

“But if Luthor was…”

Their words started tumbling into each other, like someone had upended a jigsaw puzzle, the pieces bouncing haphazardly, some fitting, some not.

“If Luthor wanted to get rid of Clark…”

“He couldn’t run the risk of someone tracing it back to him, someone who knew what Clark was investigating.”

“Even without Joker’s help, he has the resources to do it without leaving a shred of evidence, so that no court in the world would convict him…”

The train. The explosion. Another ping in Bruce’s memory. At the time, his narcissistic brain had drawn the wrong conclusion. That Bruce Wayne had been the target and Clark had been the bystander. He remembered steering Clark away from his original boarding zone, towards the VIP section. He remembered the middle of the train collapsed in on itself, the explosion centered where Clark would have originally been. The perfectly unruffled reporter, so quickly on the scene, so quick to announce to the world that it was an engine malfunction.

“Even if Luthor managed to kill Clark without leaving any evidence, the story would get out,” Lois was saying, her words plinking off Batman’s thoughts like raindrops. “Journalist investigates LexCorp’s activities, comes out with damning story. Journalist ends up dead in a freak accident. Suspicious. Public opinion matters more than court decisions these days. And corporate corruption is a hot topic. Social media would blow up. The public would go crazy.”

“And he wanted Clark to suffer. For daring to uncover the truth.” He pictured Luthor’s smile, the off-center twitchiness of it, then thought of roaches scrabbling for the dark again.

“So he finds out that Joker’s broke and out for revenge…” mused Lois. “A bribe. An old-fashioned hit, but what with all the publicity surrounding the Joker case and the other victims, no one would connect it with Luthor. Just another criminal maniac in a different city.”

“So we know who has him and why. But where is he?”

Batman paced the confines of Clark’s apartment like a caged animal. He’d looked through the entirety of Gotham, and broken more than a few heads, but could find no trace of Clark. Mentally, he followed the CCTV footage of Clark’s car again, tracking it through the route he himself often took. Over the bride, through the tunnel, then steadily west to Gotham. Bridge. Tunnel. West to Gotham.

The realization hit him like a bucket of cold water. “The tunnel…” A blind spot. No cameras. A quick grab, then a substitution. The car that drove out the other side wasn’t the same car at all. “You were right. He never left Metropolis.”

Lois shook her head. “I know that’s what I said, but it doesn’t make sense. Luthor wants it to look like a Gotham crime, carried out by a Gotham criminal. Then why have Clark killed in Metropolis?”

But it made sense to him. If there was one thing Lex loved, it was control. The man had a God-complex that rivalled his sadism. He would’ve wanted Joker to do things his way, down to the brand of narcotics used to subdue Clark and his driver. Bullet points and lists. And if there was one thing Joker hated, it was being controlled. He might have played along with Lex at first, but the whole arrangement was a ticking time bomb until Joker rebelled and fouled things up. It wasn’t out of the question for Joker to pull an elaborate sham, pretending to kidnap Clark, then actually smuggle him back into Metropolis and do the one thing Lex had hoped to avoid in the first place, leave evidence. All for his own amusement, probably.

“I know Lex. And I know Joker,” Batman said simply, then headed for the door, tossing back over his shoulder at a stunned Lois, “Wipe down the countertops if you want. He’s coming home.”

 

X

At the first second of waking, Clark opened his eyes expecting to see the dark handprints of leaves silhouetted against the glass of Bruce’s Lakehouse, weak light dappling on the floor, a half-moon of pink sunrise over the rippling water. The sheets would still be warm with Bruce’s body. Coffee would be gurgling in the kitchen, the smoky sweet steam of it wafting into the bedroom.

The next second, he realized he could only see darkness. It was the kind of darkness that was so black it muffled the senses instead of sharpening them, the kind that seemed to want to crawl into his lungs and choke him.

He opened his mouth to draw breath and coughed painfully, something warm and wet sliding down his chin. He feared it was blood.

His body was curled in on itself, still cold but not freezing anymore. He reached out and his hand touched the metallic lid of the trunk. A push, and it creaked open.

It was dark outside too. Not a sound, not a sliver of light. No indication whether it was salvation or horror that was waiting for him.

For a moment, he folded himself back into the trunk, wishing the scaredy-kid wish that he could simply disappear. No need to face whatever was out there. Close his eyes and sleep forever, let them find his naked corpse in a car trunk. He could smell his own nervous sweat, the stink of cowardice. But then Dad’s voice was in his ear, _Don’t run away from your fears, son. Life isn’t meant to be lived that way._

Slowly, painfully, he pushed himself out of the car, one limb at a time. No longer numb now, things started to hurt. His head. His ribs and stomach. His chest and lungs. And between his legs, where he’d been…

“Hello?” he croaked out, hands in front of him. There was cold concrete underneath his bare feet. His voice echoed back at him, like he was indoors. His nail-less left hand brushed against a wall and he drew back, hissing slightly in pain, tucking the hand into his chest. His right hand had been spared so he waved it until it bumped a wall too. He was in a narrow corridor of some kind. The metallic shape of the car was behind him, blocking all ways but forward.

His throat burning and his stomach oily, he took step after step, trying to stamp out his fear. He didn’t know how long he walked, that blind journey, but the wall eventually gave out into open space.

“Hello? Is anyone there?”

There was an echo now,  his own voice coming back at him in a shaky, quivery question. _Is anyone there?_

Something gleamed. Something flickered.

Then the Joker, white-faced and purple-suited, was looming on his right and he lashed out on instinct. His fist broke glass and the Joker splintered into a hundred grinning shards of mirror.

Then, as if he’d released a phantasm, a million Jokers were all around him, life-sized and cackling, funhouse-mirrored into infinity, an army of clowns surrounding him. Shrill, cackling laughter pierced the air.

_No… please no…_

The sound and the sight after so much darkness was like a physical blow, made him clutch his head as a stabbing pain hammered behind his eyeballs, almost going to his knees.

_Welcome, welcome,_ said the Joker, the voice amplified and bouncing around him, attacking him from all angles. _I can’t tell you what a pleasure it is to finally have you as a guest in my humble abode. Now that we’re finally out of that_ boring _city, I can finally_ entertain _you the way you deserve. You’re in Gotham, now, Sweetheart. Let me give you a taste of Gotham hospitality_.

Then the multi-colored strobe lighting hit like a sucker punch to the jaw, the carnival music blaring from unseen speakers, and he was grabbing his head, groaning, the cut on his head reopening and the blood pulsing in time with the jangly music.

Then Harley Quinn was draping herself over Joker with a heel kicked up, frilly apron and housewife-y dress, laughing along like it was the world’s biggest joke, _Oh, Puddin’ I just_ love _it when we have company! And this one was nice enough to ride with me on the way here! You know how I_ hate _driving alone._

She giggled and it was with a detached kind of horror that he found himself laughing along with her, like he was physically breathing in the insanity around him and it was entering his bloodstream.  

Harley made a squeak like an excited child and jumped, hundreds of her jumping in periphery like a coordinated dance, _Puddin’ should I get the slide show?_

_Slide show? We’re not savages, Harley, we’ve got that newfangled HiDef._

And then the mirrored room was awash with images, some moving and some still, of tortured bodies and screaming faces, all accompanied by the rubbery circus music and Joker’s laugh.

_Oh, what lovely memories! Our previous guests were such delights. We had such fun._

Clark stumbled through the room, hands shoving at the mirrors, the logical part of his brain telling him that it wasn’t real, that it was just a projection, just a trick. But the giddy, panicked part of him was falling into the flesh carnival around him, the stretched out bodies, the blood, the fear. He could smell the sickly sweet stink of flesh and blood, he could hear the screams and pleading jangling in his head like broken glass, _Lizzie Stride, Alex Chapel, Serge Marko,_ their rolled back eyes seemed to stare at him, _you’re one of us now, you’ll join us soon enough._

And then his legs did give out, and he screamed, or maybe he laughed. “Why are you doing this? _Why!_ ”

_Oh, I’d say it was to drive you mad, but I think you’ve beaten me to the punch_. _Clark Joseph Kent, this isn’t your first time in the Funhouse, is it?_

The mirrors flickered into darkness for one blessed second, and then came alive again, another infinite array of pictures and video, except now they were all of him. He saw himself, face scrunched in pain, limbs splayed, sex stains and blood stains, and then the incriminating evidence embroidered in pale pink scars on the insides of his thighs.

_In fact, you’re even crazier than I am_ , cackled Joker, a laugh of pure, surprised joy. _Because when I’m feeling looooopy,_ he sing-songed, _I hurt_ other _people, never myself_.

“No,” whimpered Clark, high and reedy like a child. “It wasn’t like that. I didn’t mean to… I wasn’t trying to…”

Visions of a white room. The stink of bleach. Papery pajamas and a thin mattress, metal bedposts for fastening restraints. The bitter, powdery tang of medication at the back of his throat.

“No. No, no…”

Calliope music battered his ears. The colored circus lights danced frenetically. He watched himself, sprawled out on his stomach, body twitching rhythmically in what he knew was a rape. His entrance throbbed between his legs.

_I was supposed to kill you, you know_. _But I like you. I think I’ll keep you. Show you the_ fun _parts of being insane._

And then the room was filled with blinding white light and he was staring at nothing but the cruel reflection of himself: a wild-eyed, scraggly-haired face that was all hills and hollows, bleeding mouth and cracked lips, naked and pale and shaking on all fours like an animal. A sick, pain-stunned animal that was too dumb to know that it needed to be put down.

_Not to mention, my friend Croc has grown rather fond of his new pet_.

Then, looming behind him, countless reflections of the one he dreaded most. The hulking, naked creature with glowing yellow eyes.

“No. Please, no.”

Clark half-limped, half crawled back towards the way he came, but found no exit, only a unrelenting wall of mirrors. A burning sensation at his feet, he looked down and saw that he cut himself on a shard of glass. He’d just palmed a piece when one image of Croc came too close to be anything but real, and he was being pulled up by a too-tight grip on his arm.

“Time for some more fun,” Croc laughed lowly, take his cock in one hand, and Clark, truly hating him, tightened his grip on the mirror shard and stabbed for the carotid artery.

The glass cut his palm worse than it cut Croc. The skin was tough, like the leather from the Kents’ cattle, back when they still had cattle. It couldn’t have penetrated more than a fingernail’s width and there was no blood at all.

The leering look fell from Croc’s face, replaced with a pissed-off snarl. He pulled the shard of mirror out, it flashed back Clark’s own red-rimmed eyes and tear-streaked face. A closed fist, and the glass turned to silver powder in Croc’s fist.

“I should make you eat this,” growled the beast. “But I’ve got a better use for your mouth. Anyone ever teach you how to give a blowjob?”

He hit Clark hard across the face and he went down easily enough, his legs weak and wobbly from days of starvation and dehydration. His knees hit concrete, a feeling he was already getting used to, and his mouth was squeezed open, his jaw popping between thick, scaly fingers.

“Here, let me show you how it’s done.”

Wasn’t that just hilarious. He was getting a sex-ed lesson from a lizard man, and he’d be watching it happen in a hundred different angles mirrored back at him, with circus music playing in the background.

And he laughed.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please see the beautiful artwork for this chapter's train scene by:   
> [kn96Archive](http://archiveofourown.org/users/kn96Archive/pseuds/kn96Archive)  
> [HERE](http://kn96pro.tumblr.com/post/150725801249/happiness-so-heres-the-thing-first-of-all-im)
> 
>  
> 
> Thanks so much for sticking with this story despite the long gap in updates!! So yeah... sorry for any Harley fans. She totally pulled a nasty one on Clark. 
> 
> Feedback always appreciated!


	10. Martha

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bruce meets Martha and more of Clark's past is revealed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No copyright infringement intended, no profits made!

_Past_

 

Two days after the explosion, Bruce found himself facing the slightly crooked brass numbers on Clark’s apartment door, fist poised to knock and wholly unsure of what to do once the knock was answered. For someone always thinking two steps into the future, this was disorienting. He fingered the spare key to Clark’s apartment in his pocket, not sure what message he was sending by knocking instead of letting himself in.

He pressed the metal teeth into the pad of his finger, leaving little indents, and wondered if he could bring himself to end it with Clark.

 _I think we should see other people. It’s not you, it’s me. Here’s your key back._ The key on the palm of his hand, a lame offering.

Clark’s gobsmacked reaction: _But why?_

 _Oh, it’s nothing personal. Just that I almost got you killed by a train bomb, and that I have nightmares about my enemies hurting you to get to me. What enemies? Joker, Two-Face, and the entire Gotham mob. Oh yeah, I’ve been lying to you from the start. I’m Batman. Haha! Friends?_ Then him stepping to one side of the doormat to avoid the oncoming punch.

Slightly giddy, he knocked and counted down the seconds that it took Clark to answer the door.

Four Mississippi, and he heard Clark’s footsteps thumping hurriedly towards the door before it was thrown open. They stared at each other for a moment while the key cut ridges into Bruce’s palm. Clark looked about as conflicted as Bruce felt, his expression shapeshifting from relieved, to happy, to angry at getting no word from Bruce in the past two days except for a text: _at gotham central hospital, im ok._

Clark took a quick step forward and Bruce nearly ducked at the punch he was sure was coming his way, but then Clark was hugging him, squeezing the disappointment and guilt and self-doubt away, and he buried his face into Clark’s shoulder, that comforting warmth, and wished he could stay there forever.

“You’re ok?” Clark breathed.

“Yeah. I am.” _I am now_.

There was the shuffle of feet from within the apartment, then a woman’s voice, “Clark?”

Bruce pulled out of the hug to see a woman peering out from the edge of the doorframe. She had brown hair peppered with gray and wore an old-fashioned cardigan over a V-necked shirt and a gold cross at the hollow of her throat. It took him a disorienting second to recognize her from the photos as Clark’s mother.

“Mom!” said Clark, startling a little. He hopped back so that there was at least a handspan’s distance between him and Bruce, and made an awkward little gesture, “This is my Bruce-friend. I mean! My boy-Bruce. I mean…. This is um… this is Bruce.”

“Hello, Clark’s Bruce.” She smiled and took Bruce’s hand in a surprisingly strong grip, pumping it twice. “I’m Martha.”

The name gave him a little shiver, like the blood in the vein behind his ear suddenly ran cold. Her face blurred and he saw red lips and high cheekbones, the lovely, refined features of the mother that lived in his memory. In death, Martha Wayne had the benefit of remaining eternally young and beautiful. _This_ Martha had a tired, careworn sort of beauty, like a old, well-loved dress that had lost its snap and sheen, that had been let out here and there.

“There’s coffee on,” she was saying. “Come in, come in, I’m glad to be finally meeting you.” A wrinkled hand on his elbow guided him into the apartment. Clark pulled the door shut behind him, effectively trapping him.

On his enforced march to the kitchen, the telltale signs of Martha Kent’s residence revealed themselves to him in a rush: a novel on the windowsill by an author Clark hated, a new plant, a pair of blue pumps by the door, shopping bags with touristy logos. The cashmere blanket he’d bought for Clark was folded into a perfectly neat square at the end of the couch, along with an extra pillow: a makeshift bed. A few items usually found on Clark’s nightstand were pushed to one end of the coffee table. The cats were nowhere to be seen, though he could see the litter box pushed to one corner of the living room. He wondered if Martha was allergic.

He could imagine Martha Kent wandering her way through Clark’s apartment, quietly amazed at the windowless bedroom, the narrow countertops, the little tin foil packets of coffee: _so this is how you do it in Metropolis?_

He mumbled polite inquiries on autopilot as he was presented with a fat mug of coffee and plate of cookies, _is this your first trip here? How long are you here for? Here for the holidays or just dropping by?_

Martha perched opposite him and answered the last question, “I hopped on the first plane over when I heard about the explosion.” She shook her head sorrowfully. “The news came on the radio when I was dressing the turkey, can you imagine? Clark called to tell me he was alright, but _still_ … thought I’d come over and check on him anyway.”

He sipped his coffee and made a sympathetic noise, “Of course, I totally understand,” and wondered, painfully, what it would be like to have a mother that dropped everything and flew a to city she’d never been to at the first notice that her son was hurt. Someone to stuff his fridge with cold turkey sandwiches and ask a million questions about his big city life, someone to nag and care and love.

“Mom and I were just about to head out for lunch,” Clark chimed in. “Won’t you join us?”

“I… actually I was just stopping by, I have somewhere I need to be…”

“Well of _course_ , he should join us,” said Martha. “It’ll be the perfect chance for us to get acquainted.” She was already reaching for her pocketbook. 

Feeling vaguely ambushed, Bruce could only nod.

 

X

 

Once a year on their anniversary, Mom and Dad would load up in the sedan and drive 20 miles to the next town over, to a restaurant that the neighbors would say in hushed voices, was _classy-classy_. Mom would put on one of two “going out” outfits, the navy blue sheath dress or the dove gray one with the scoop collar. They were dresses that would go well with a string of pearls, but she never owned pearls, so she wore her gold cross and tugged it absently on the drive over. She always, always ordered the shrimp.

Clark counted two shrimp dishes on the cream card of a menu and peered up at Mom, wondering which one she’d go for.

“Oh, everything looks good,” she said with a little sigh, and turned to Bruce, who’d insisted on taking them out to what Clark was sure was the most expensive restaurant in Eastside Metropolis. The color scheme was muted, the menu items were in a foreign language, and the prices weren’t even listed. _Classy-classy._ “Why don’t you pick something for me, you know this place.”

Bruce ordered Icelandic cod and a glass of Pinot Gris for her in fluent Swedish, and complimented her outfit as the waiter retreated.

She smiled. “Thank you. I got it on sale at T.J. Maxx. The top was a whole 50% off.”

“Wow,” said Bruce, eyebrows going up. “You know, I can never find anything that nice on sale when I go to T.J. Maxx.”

Clark’s left eye twitched slightly.

“Oh, you just have to catch them on Labor Day,” she said breezily. “So, you and Clark met when he was doing a story? That’s interesting.”

“Yeah,” said Bruce, eyes going sideways to Clark. “A… financial exposé, wasn’t it?”

He took Clark’s hand, who blushed.

“I just remember thinking that he was a real intrepid reporter. Tenacious. Heroic, even.”

“Heroic, huh?” She gave Clark a mischievous look. “That actually started way back. Did Clark ever tell you about the time he was seven and tried to liberate the neighbor’s hog?”

“Mom…”

“He’d just found out ham came from pigs. Broke his little heart. Tried to ride Tessa to freedom.”

“ _Mom!_ ”

“Very heroic,” said Bruce, completely straight-faced. “Did he ever tell you about the time he fell out of a tree trying to rescue kittens from a roof?”

“ _Bruce!_ ”

“Did he ever tell you…”

The waiter arrived with a large metal dish of crushed ice, round blobs of caviar on top. A bottle of wine was held at a slant for Bruce’s approval, then popped, a small amount drizzled into his glass and swirled for tasting.

Clark excused himself to go to the bathroom, taking an extra long time washing his hands, hoping they were getting to know each other better. Hoping that they liked each other. And hoping they’d find some common ground besides embarrassing him.

When he got back, the 2nd course had been served (another way to tell if a restaurant was _classy-classy,_ the courses are numbered instead of named) and Mom and Bruce were just finishing up a conversation. They turned and smiled at him when he sat down. Was he imagining it or were they smiling just a little too hard?

 

X

“That was a nice lunch,” said Clark, as he was helping his mother pack.

“Mmhm,” said Mom, folding shirts on the couch. There were aggressively colorful souvenirs lined up on the coffee table, ready to be wrapped and stowed. She’d insisted on buying them for the folks back in Kansas –  mugs and t’shirts and bumper stickers all declaring with little hearts that they _loved_ Metropolis. “Nice.”

“So…” he urged nervously. “Did you like him?”

 She shrugged. “What’s not to like? He’s charming, nice. Rich.”

“I’m a big boy, Mom. You can be honest with me.” _Please honestly like him._

He watched her fold and refold the same shirt several times, her brow wrinkled in concentration, before saying, “There’s a difference between liking him and liking him for _you_.”

_Darn, she doesn’t like him._

She sighed and said, “I know we weren’t always the richest family out there. We had some hard times, even before your dad passed. But we always did try to give you a good life and…”

“ _Gosh_ , Mom!” Clark protested, dropping the suitcase he was zipping up. It hit the floor and bounced open, scattering sweaters. “It’s not like that. For crying out loud. I’m not some kind of… _gold digger_!”

“Ok, ok. Sorry.”

He started gathering up the sweaters again. “He really wanted to make a good impression, you know.”

“Really? The face he made when you invited him to join us, you’d think we were asking him to stick his head in a thresher.”

“I’m sure he was just busy. It’s hard for him to make time.”

“Was that why he didn’t even come see you in the hospital?”

It was his turn to sigh. He zipped up the monster of a suitcase and sat on it, shoulders slumped. “I think… there might be a good reason for that.”

She raised an eyebrow at him. _Oh?_

“I think he’s working for the CIA.”

“Hm.” The other eyebrow went up.

He’d seen his fair share of CIA operatives during deployment, had stared at more than one pair of mirrored sunglasses from across the plane while resisting the urge to make small talk, feeling nervous even though _he_  was the one holding the rifle.

It wasn’t so much that Bruce spoke more languages than a man like him had any reason to speak. It wasn’t so much the constant secretive phone calls, the sneaking out at odd hours of the night, as if Bruce was a surgeon that was constantly on call. It wasn’t even the uncanny ability to change faces: charming and witty while he made his coffee order one second, then smoothly ruthless when he confronted a business rival the next second. Humble and bashful when he needed to be. Ill-tempered and petulant when it was guaranteed to get him results. He could turn emotions on and off like a switch.

Bruce had a certain keenness to him, a razor-sharp focus that he’d rarely seen in any other profession. At times, he almost seemed dangerous.

They’d gotten mugged once, as they walked back to Clark’s apartment after seeing _Les Pêcheurs de Perles_ at the opera. The red-eyed, emaciated youth that pointed a quivering switchblade at them seemed barely out of his teens. Voice shaking, he’d demanded their phones and wallets.

Bruce had seemed calm enough, smiling as he talked the kid down, _you don’t want to do this son, I’m not carrying any cash and you know my credit cards are traceable._

The robber, pointing the knife at Clark: _then I want the bike!_

Bruce was still smiling, but Clark saw him shift ever so slightly, his weight transferring to his left foot while the knuckles on his left hand started to curl. He could see the blow before it happened, Bruce swiveling, arm shooting out like a battering ram, fist connecting to either sternum or throat. The kid wheezing on the ground, windpipe crushed. There was a gleam in Bruce’s eyes, one so full of dark fury that Clark actually laid a hand on his wrist, a silent plea: _no._

He’d babbled at the robber: _You can have ol’ faithful here, but just check the brakes once a week, ok? And the chain probably needs to be replaced…_

_Shut up, just shut up, man!_

In the end, the kid shook so hard he dropped the knife, stared at them for a moment, stunned, then whirled around and ran for it. It was only when the sound of ratty sneakers slapping the pavement disappeared completely that Clark released Bruce’s wrist.

“I mean, not _the_ CIA, of course,” Clark said quickly, snapping out of his daydream. “I mean he works for a blog called the CIA, real hipster stuff, you wouldn’t approve. But anyway, _please don’t tell anyone or he’ll have to kill us both_.”

“You’ve been watching too many Justin Bourne movies.”

“ _Jason_ Bourne,” Clark muttered sullenly, “and the books are better.”

“Whatever,” she sing-songed, waving a hand and walking to the kitchen, returning with a glass of sweet tea and a handful of goldfish crackers. “Well, if you ever get tired of dating _Jason_ Bourne, then there’s a nice girl back home still carrying a torch for you. And what about the one you work with, Lois? How’s she doing these days?”

“I don’t think any girl back home is going to cut it,” he said quietly. “Or any girl, actually. Mom, I think Bruce is it. He’s the one.”

She set down her glass. “Oh, Clark.”

“I… know I haven’t always lived life the way you or Dad wanted me to…”

She made a _what can you do_ type of gesture. “I can’t control what you do, Clark. Never was able.”

Her voice had a tang of bitterness to it. He shifted uncomfortably, remembering her hope and joy when his enlistment was up. She’d expected him to take up his place on the farm and settle down, expected to have her baby boy back. Then her heartbreak when he, after only a month back in Smallville, packed up for Kansas City and the exciting world of journalism. Her fearful disbelief when he left the country again for a warzone, this time as a war correspondent. Not sleeping well until she saw his grainy image during their weekly Skype session, and saw with her own eyes that her baby boy was still alive. Her stony face when he finally returned home with a battered camera, a bullet in his pocket, and bandaged wrists from when he was held captive in Kabul. Her face crumpling in sadness as she told him the farm was in trouble. The latest crop hadn’t been good, neither had the last three. The money she’d borrowed for the new equipment had run out and she’d been dodging the loan for years. They would lose everything, the land that had been her husband’s and her husband’s parents’, and his parents’ parents’, the land that had been handed to her, that she’d tried and tried to make profitable, down on her knees in prayer each night and fingers crossed each morning while Clark was wandering the world.

 _So use my college fund_ , he’d said, absentmindedly picking at a scab on his wrist. _That should keep the bank off your back._ Knowing what she really wanted was for him to stay, for her prodigal son to return.

 _But Clark,_ she’d said, sounding like she was ready to cry. _Your father wanted you to have an education_.

 _It’s what_ he _wanted_. _It’s not what I want. I’m sorry, Mom._

 _I just want you to be safe!_ An anguished cry.

Then, the trip to Metropolis. At least it wasn’t a warzone. Her, reluctantly packing his bags with flannel shirts, sneaking in a framed photo of the three of them in front of a then-new tractor. Seeing him off at the train. Waving from the platform.

“Are you disappointed in me, Mom?” he asked softly, staring down at his hands. “The way I’ve lived my life? I know it wasn’t what you wanted for me, and I know I don’t have much to show for myself…”

“Oh, Clark.” She came over and touched his face with both hands. “My baby boy.”

She looked like she was about to cry but she was smiling. “When we found first found you, I thought you were my little gift from Heaven. You weren’t an easy baby. You struggled to breathe sometimes, scared me to death. And as you grew up, you never stopped scaring me, always rushing into the worst messes you could find.”

“That’s not true… well, not always true.”

“But I love you. I think if I’d given birth to a son, I couldn’t love him more than I love you. And you know what? There’s nothing you can do, no decision you can make, that will make me leave you or stop loving you.”

He hugged her to him, her thin body tight against his, and kissed her cheek. “I love you too.”

But in the back of his mind, the niggling thought: _She still doesn’t like Bruce._

X

 

_Present_

Someone had left _Celebrity Gossip_ on one of the office TVs, the hostess bleating down at Lois’ cubicle with lips so glossy they were nearly dripping.

 _I’m just saying, Darlene, his_ boyfriend _, the supposed love of his_ life _, is_ kidnapped, _and he’s still_ schmoozing _and_ boozing _with his trust fund friends, making day trips on his_ limo, _I mean, it’s mind-boggling, just mind-boggling how_ calm _he is._

A candid shot plastered over the screen: Bruce getting out of a limo, mouth curled in a smile at someone in the distance, hand poised to wave. Suave. Unruffled. Except Lois could see the dark circles under his eyes and the too-tightness of his smile.

 _I know, Jessica, I know. I mean, it’s true that people process grief differently, but still… Do you see that_ grin _, Jessica? He’s_ happy _. And sources say that he’s become real friendly with a_ foreign heiress _, that she spends nights over at his_ hotel _. I mean…! Poor Clark. Makes me sick to my stomach. Revolting._

This, from the people who’d been happy to label Clark a gold-digging cheat just hours before his kidnapping. After the kidnapping, he was suddenly elevated to the status of a  poor, martyred soul, while Bruce was simultaneously condemned as the faithless bastard boyfriend.

Revolting, indeed.

“Still working, Lois?” Perry boomed at her, ambling from his office and bringing with him the sting of tobacco and old coffee, coat slung over his arm, hat angled over his head.

She peered up from her monitor like a swimmer coming up for air, keystrokes pausing. “It’s not that late.”

He looked pointedly around the office, which was otherwise abandoned. A vacuum cleaner hummed somewhere across the floor.

“Good night, Perry.”

He headed for the elevators then paused, looking up at the wall-mounted TV, which was now plaintively complaining that the Gotham police had failed Clark Kent as well as the rest of the victims, and that it was time to bring in the FBI.

She watched him open his mouth and waited for some variation of the two phrases he’d uttered all week. Angry and defiant: _Those bastards will have hell to pay for taking one of our own,_ and wetly sympathetic: _I’m sure they’ll find him, have faith._

But he only gave her a sad look and said, “Take care of yourself, ok?” and departed with the _ding_  of the elevator.

She waited until he was gone, then waited until the sounds of the vacuum faded away. Then unlocked the bottom drawer of her desk, dumped out a six-inch stack of old files and popped the false bottom. In it was a case that she unlocked with a different key, and pulled out a military grade Taser, which she tucked between her belt and the waistband of her pants. Tugged her jacket down to hide the bulge. Sent off a text to her sister with a vague message that she was hanging out down by the harbor. Just in case something happened to her that night, at least someone would know her whereabouts.

 

X

_Past_

 

“Ow, that stings.”

“Shhh, I’m sorry. Almost done.”

Bruce rubbed medicine in soothing circles on the angry red welts on Clark’s wrist, then on his neck. An icepack was held to the shiner on his left eye. There was a blanket around him and a fire crackling frenetically in the grate, the sky stormy and inky black outside.

They were at the Lakehouse, Clark sinking into the marshmallow-soft couch and looking every bit like he’d had a “rough day,” Bruce perched on the edge and ministering to him with a plastic tray of gauze and ointments.

“Now it feels nice,” sighed Clark. “Wow, whatever you’re using really works. What is it?”

“Just a generic store brand.”

It was actually a compound developed in the Batcave’s lab, made specially to counteract the various nasty toxins in Poison Ivy’s arsenal.

Batman had been gruff when he’d rescued Clark from her clutches. A call from Arkham earlier that night: apparently an interview between inmate Poison Ivy and _Daily Planet’s_ Clark Kent had turned into an argument had turned into a scuffle had turned into a security breach, until it escalated into a hostage situation on the roof. Swooping and rescuing was needed, swooping and rescuing had been provided.

 _Why are you in Arkham and why was she after you?_ he'd growled mechanically at Clark.

 _That’s confidential,_ Clark had replied snappishly, pulling off dead vines which had been strangling him mere seconds ago. _You want the story, buy the_ Daily Planet.

Batman had responded to such stupid obliviousness by hauling the reporting up by his shirtfront (not by the jacket, which Bruce knew was loose in the shoulders), and dangling him off the edge of the roof so that only the tips of his toes touched the parapet.

After the initial struggle, Clark actually leaned back over the edge, looked Batman in his indecipherable eyes, and said, _I know you won’t hurt me._

_You know nothing about me._

Then the truly disconcerting moment when Clark seemed to stare straight through him, and he could feel those eyes on his flesh like a warmth, and all his layers of armor felt insubstantial as paper. _It doesn’t have to be this way. Who are you, really?_

Not “ _what’s your name,”_ but “ _who are you?”_ like Clark was asking him an existential question.

A yank and a toss, and Clark landed back on the roof, wobbling on his feet, calling after him as he flew away, _Thanks for saving me!_

Not five minutes later, still outfitted as Batman, he’d received a sheepish call from Clark asking Bruce if he could be picked in front of Arkham Asylum.

Now, as Bruce, he was allowed to pet and fuss and be gentle, ply Clark with hot chocolate and wrap him up in fuzzy wool, kiss his fingertips. It was decadent, being able to _care_.

“What were you even doing there, anyway?” he asked. “And what’d you do to piss her off?”

“Nothing much.”

“Come on.”

Sighing, Clark dropped the ice pack into his lap. The skin underneath was still plump and bruised, but better than it had been. “She called the _Planet_ and asked for a private interview with me.”

“Why would she do that?”

The trick was to gentle Clark along. Sound like you were interrogating him, sound like you have even the slightest agenda other than being genuinely curious, and the journalist would clam up tighter than the Batcave’s security.

Bruce didn’t have to pretend very hard. He _was_ genuinely baffled. A Metropolis reporter in Arkham wasn’t exactly commonplace. 

“She wanted me to write an exposé about Dr. Arkham. She claimed,” he winced, “that the good doctor was running illegal experiments on the inmates. When I told her I can’t just write a story without more evidence, she got a little… upset.”

“Understatement,” said Bruce, running a finger down a fading red welt on Clark’s neck, eliciting a small laugh. “Why you of all people?”

“Because, me of all people…” Clark repeated, then trailed off, looking over Bruce’s shoulder at the fire and then back at him, nervous. His hands folded in his lap, all good-mannered farm boy, his default posture when he was distracted and sitting.

“What is it?” Bruce prompted gently.

“She knew my history,” Clark said, and looked down, and Bruce stroked the back of his neck. Let him take his time.

“Do you remember the St. Albertus Center in Metropolis?” he said finally, peeking up at Bruce.

“Doesn’t ring a bell.”

“Right, they closed down years ago. It was a psychiatric hospital specializing in people who… hurt themselves.”

Another silence, during which Clark’s jaw worked nervously, Bruce holding his breath.

“It happened during my first year in Metropolis, actually. I was working as a barista at the time.” A vision of an apron and a cute hat, that flashy smile behind a register, a tip jar that was always full. “That’s where I met Lois. She always used to come in a few minutes before closing, sometimes a few minutes after. I always worked the last shift, so we’d get to talking.”

He had an intimate image of the two of them, bent over steaming late-night coffees,  the rest of the café a dark forest of upturned chairs on tables. A toss of red hair, the secret flash of that smile. Pen scraping on notepad, or perhaps even a napkin. A mop drying in the corner.

“Once, she told me about the St. Albertus case she was working on. Nice, respectable hospital. She’d done a pretty mundane article about them opening up a new wing, but something made her suspicious. So, after digging around a little, checking some records, she had a theory that the chief physician was abusing the patients.”

“Violence? Negligence?”

“More like experimental drugs. People getting sick, really sick, before they got better. Symptoms completely unrelated to what brought them in. Some of them never got better.” He shivered and took a drink of hot chocolate, the way someone else would take a fortifying sip of whisky. “I mean, it wasn’t _that_ suspicious on the surface. The whole reason folks were there in the first place was because they hurt themselves. It’s not _too_ hard to imagine some of them stealing or swapping medication, maybe getting their hands on some chemicals. But Lois thought it was a trend. People with the same symptoms, over and over again, vomiting, purging, fevers, some of them just wasting away until they died. Creepy stuff.”

Bruce swallowed hard, his tongue feeling heavy. “And you…?”

“I helped with her investigation. By… going undercover.” Another gulp of chocolate. “She tried to talk me out of it, but I thought it was the best way.”

Realization dawned. “You pulled a Nellie Bly.”

A short laugh, more of a snort, from Clark. “Except unlike Nellie Bly, I’m a terrible actor and I can’t lie to save my life.”

 _Those scars…_ “So you hurt yourself.”

“I _pretended_ to hurt myself.”

“By actually hurting yourself.”

Clark’s head jerked towards him, defensive, but Bruce couldn’t get the image out of his head: Clark methodically slicing himself open. Cutting himself again and again over a period of months. Lowering himself into the tub, jaw clenched in concentration, a first aid kit propped up nearby. The glint of a razor blade or a knife. The slow ooze of blood slurping down the drain. Did he lay down towels? Did he wear swim trunks, trying to convince himself that it was just another chore, like hosing down the car?

“So what, you admitted yourself? Let them drug you? Abuse you?”

“More or less. After two weeks of it, I tried to leave. They wouldn’t let me. Wouldn’t let me contact anyone. Lois told me later that she came in with the police after she didn’t hear from me, but all I remember is waking up in the ICU. There were enough drugs left in me to convict the doctor that was responsible. A month later, St. Albertus was shut down. Not long after that, I started working at the _Planet_. Eventually, there were plans to rebuild, but it never happened. Poison Ivy must have gotten her hands on the article. Lois listed me as a co-author, but she was the one who wrote it.”  

 _More or less_. _Enough drugs in me_. The words were too mundane for something so sordid.

When Clark leaned slightly to the left, he leaned in too, bracing Clark against him, wrapping an arm around those broad but slightly shaking shoulders.

“So was it?” he asked softly. “Experimental drug testing?”

Clark lowered his eyes. Picked at a thread on his lap, running his fingernail down the fabric with a raspy scrape. “Worse.”

“Worse?”

“There was no reason for it. Well, there _was_ , but it wasn’t something practical. Poisoning people to test out dangerous drugs, at least that has a logic to it, you know? They found traces of horse tranquilizers in my bloodwork. I mean, what could be the _purpose_? Force-feeding someone horse tranquilizers? If I had to define it, I’d call it medical sadism. It made him happy, sickening people, watching them die. One of the papers called it factitious disorder by proxy, but that never seemed right to me.”

His eyes slid to the right, then to the left, looking at nothing, and Bruce wondered if he was mentally confining himself in a whitewashed room that stank of bleach, listening to the far-off drip of an IV bag, reliving his time in the hospital.

“When I wake up crummy sometimes, I can still see him standing at the end of my bed, with a needle or a glass of something weird, all _we want to get better, don’t we?_ _You won’t get better unless you take this,_ with this huge smile on his face, like he was getting off on it. He was sick, as sick as his patients. But he hurt other people, not himself.”

“Jesus.”

Bruce stood and made an aborted move to pick up the mugs and transfer them to the kitchen. Ended up dropping them back into their sticky brown rings. Sat down and rubbed his face.

“Why do you hate yourself?” he said unexpectedly.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” said Clark.

He couldn’t stop thinking about it: those bright red lines, marring pristine skin. The flash of that knife. Clark, pale faced and dry-lipped, lying in a hospital bed, staring at nothing. He didn’t _pretend_ to hurt himself. He _had_ hurt himself. Period. Then, as if his brain was frantically supplying the thought that he’d vocalized, he started thinking of other instances of Clark’s recklessness, the uncaring way he threw himself into danger, always headfirst. Turned ankles, black eyes, and bruises, and maybe the even deeper, more invisible wounds of self-loathing. Those glasses that he didn’t actually need but wore anyway, like he was hiding from the world behind them. Bruce was no therapist, but he knew there was more than one way to self-harm.

What was it Clark had said once? _I feel unreal. Like I was never meant to exist in this world._

“Bruce,” Clark was saying, snapping him out of his thoughts. The impatience in his voice suggested that it wasn’t the first time he’d said it. He put a hand on Bruce’s knee, moistening his trousers with melted ice water. “I know what you’re thinking. It’s _not true_. I don’t hate myself. I’m not suicidal.”

“Clark…”

“I love myself. And I love this world.”

He touched Bruce’s cheek, his hand clammy from the icepack, but quickly warming. He was smiling. “And I love this world best when I’m with you. Because I love you.”

And just like that, all the disappointment and fear and worry were melting away, and he felt like he could fall into that smile, that no darkness in the world could exist as long as they were together.

His eyes closed and he said, “I love you too.” It startled him, saying it out loud. It was the first time he’d uttered any iteration of those Three Words, and it came out in a hurried jumble, like an afterthought, like he was ashamed.   

He stole a quick look to see Clark’s reaction, but Clark was only smiling softly, like Bruce had simply confirmed something he’d known for a long time.

The next morning, he woke up with Clark’s head pillowed on his arm, and he found that the thought didn’t frighten him anymore, loving someone. And then another thought, that rose up like the morning sun: _I don’t want to be without you. You drive me crazy, but I don’t want to be without you._

Before Clark left for work, he tugged him back, like he couldn’t bear to let him go, and said, almost begging, “Stay away from Arkham. Promise me. There’s a darkness there you couldn’t begin to understand.”

“I’ve seen evil before, Bruce.” That naïve bravado. That obliviousness that drove Bruce crazy. 

“You’ve seen suffering, yes. You might have even seen evil. But there’s a… special sickness in Arkham. If you love me, promise me you’ll stay away.”

“…ok.”

“I need to hear you say it, Clark.”

“Ok, I’ll stay away from Arkham.”

 

X

 

Bruce was a little weird after that night, more withdrawn, but somehow more affectionate at the same time. Clark took it in stride. He’d dropped an emotional kind of a bombshell, anyone was bound to be affected.

So he went to work and teased Lois, bickered with Perry, spent late hours hopped up on caffeine, endured the weekly meetings and endured the annual assault of early Christmas music and forcibly bright decorations. Called Mom. Grocery shopped, fed and played with the cats. Did his rounds at the soup kitchen. Business as usual.

Then a surprise visit from Bruce, who caught him in front of the _Planet_ as he was climbing into a car. It was supposed to take him to the stadium, for a pre-game interview with the players.

“Hey,” he called out, jogging across the square towards Bruce, who was watching the fountain with a slight smile. The cold had frozen it mid-spurt, turning into a shimmering, milky-white ice sculpture. “I thought I wasn’t going to see you until tonight. Dinner still on?”

“I thought I’d take you out to lunch first.” Bruce had two hot dogs in one hand, piled high with relish. Sodas in the other.

“Thanks,” said Clark, his mouth full. Wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “I uh… actually have to go soon.” He made an apologetic gesture at his driver, who was just starting up the car, bending over to crank up the heat.

Bruce nodded. “I know. I didn’t want to wait until tonight to give you this.”

He didn’t know what he was expecting to be placed in his hand, but it wasn’t a small velvet bag with a diamond ring inside. Diamonds, _plural_. An eternity band. It sat in his palm like a circle of tears, impossibly bright in the winter sun.

Clark wasn’t usually speechless. He was the type to mumble inane nothings rather than suffer a loaded silence. But now, he found himself speechless. His face ached, and he realized he was smiling from ear to ear.

“It’s ok,” said Bruce, folding Clark’s fingers over the ring. “You don’t have to say anything. In fact, don’t say anything at all. Just think about it, ok? Tell me tonight, if you’re ready. I’ll wait for you, at our usual place. Our usual table.”

The low, whiny blare of the car horn. His driver sticking her head out the window. “Come on, Kent! Let’s goooo!”

He walked dazedly towards the car, then jerked back as if he’d forgotten something, to fling himself into Bruce’s arms and kiss him deeply.

“Kent! Either get a room or get in the car!”

He left Bruce then, standing against the diamond-faceted ice fountain and smiling back at him. He waved as they pulled out into the blaring Metropolis traffic, and then closed his eyes as they headed steadily north and Bruce shrank out of sight, not wanting to see anything else for a while.

He squeezed the ring in his hand and  had the feeling of a long journey coming full circle.

It was the last happy thing he’d remember for a long time.

X

_Present_

At the height of Metropolis’ manufacturing era, the industrial park had been a grimy stew of noise and smell: the _whack-boom_ of trucks docking and unloading, the teeth-chattering screech of saws, the constant fish-greasy smell of cutting oil, the tang of smoke from the men on their cigarette breaks, slouching and flapping their t’shirts against their chests while their faces got angry-hot under the sun.

Lois remembered the typical optimistic headlines, had written a few herself: _Growth for Manufacturing Jobs This Year, Factory Orders Rise 5%, Metal-working Industry Now Equal-Opportunity_.

Then came the Luthors and their sweeping innovations, and over the years, the small-timer old-timer laborers found themselves running a cruel race against progress: programed schematics and dozens of pod-like machines that worked silently and tirelessly and only required a single techie at a terminal to run.  

The industrial park was now a ghost town. The wind whistled through the cracks in brick warehouses and rattled the corrugated metal sidings like they were brassy wind chimes. It no longer smelled like smoke and grease, the aromas of production. Instead, it smelled like dirt and grass and water, like nature was creeping back onto land that mankind had only borrowed.

There were the occasional pockets of piss-smell and body odor. The homeless, some of them former factory workers, camped out here until it was too cold to do so.

Lois hopped a low fence and made her way towards a familiar red glow, a communal bonfire. In the near-dark, she could make out liquor bottles in clenched hands, the hands pulled close to curled up bodies and muttering mouths.

She passed a skeletal woman who shivered violently over an aluminum tray of dying embers. She’d given the woman an old, fuzzy gray jacket a while back, but it was nowhere to be seen. She wondered what it had been traded for. Cigarettes? Food? A needle in the vein, so that she could travel somewhere warmer and nicer, if only in her mind?

More people were sprawled in front of the fire, some of them talking, some of them staring into space.

“Hey, Lois,” a man with a filthy wool cap pulled low over his eyebrows greeted her.

“Evening.” She didn’t bother addressing him by one of the five different names he’d given her over the past year. He was reading from a dog-eared novel that she’d loaned him months ago. His face was smudged with dirt and his clothes were ratty, but he always kept his beard clean and well-tended.

He licked a smudgy thumb and turned a page when she mentioned Clark, then stared straight ahead when she asked him whether he’d seen or heard anything. Somewhere near them, a man was coughing unstoppably, then came a retching sound, a wet splat, and weepy cursing. Someone else was singing softly into the dark.

“Please,” she said. “I need to know.” She handed him a twenty, but he pushed it away. Still, it took him another five minutes of staring contemplatively into the fire before he poked a long-nailed finger in the direction of a cluster of warehouses about two blocks down. Old chemical companies.

“You see something down there?”

He shrugged. “May have.”

“And you didn’t tell the police?”

He snorted harshly. “Don’t like cops.” Then nodded faux-sagely and said, “He’s a good kid. Nice to me. You guys goin’ out or somethin’?” 

She ignored him and walked off towards the former Dow’s Specialty Chemicals warehouse, stepping carefully around broken glass and the occasional sleeping body.

“Don’t go there,” he warned halfheartedly, already turning back to the book.

Minutes later, she was pushing her shoulders through a hole in the chain link fence and then fumbling for her flashlight. She flicked the yellow beam back and forth, saw that the metal gate at the loading dock was open. She crept along the back of the building, listening intently, but heard nothing. After a moment’s hesitation, she hefted herself up the four feet into the loading dock and was inside the warehouse.

It was somehow even colder inside. She could see her breath in the air as she walked past the empty, sagging racks, one hand on the flashlight, one hand held up in front of her like she was expecting to be hit. She slipped slightly, gasping aloud, and saw what first appeared to be blood on the floor was actually smeared tomato soup.

Then a turn at the corner, and the light fell on something that took her horror-frozen mind a full minute to process.

Clark, hanging by his neck from the ceiling’s steel beams like a dummy hung in effigy, face smeared in clown makeup. Not moving. Not even swaying.

She felt her throat working, tried to say his name, but was only able to make a low croaking sound. Her intestines had turned to eels. Her blood had run cold.

Gentle, bumbling, salt of the earth Clark.

After the fiasco of a marriage proposal, she’d often thought, humoring herself, of what life what be like if they’d gone through with it. Her thoughts inexplicably went to that now, as she stood frozen in front of his hung-meat body. In a long, stretched-out moment, she pictured waking up with him on lazy Sunday mornings, sleep-fuzzy hair and prickly stubble. She pictured the car they’d buy and the flannel shirts she’d patch up for him. She pictured trimming his hair, making coffee in the morning, then snapping at him to do the dishes while they both bustled, getting ready for work. Any image was better than this, the bloodstained shirt and the broken belt buckle, the sloppy red wound of a mouth.

“It’s not him,” said a voice from the darkness, and she screamed, snapping up the Taser, but a gloved hand deflected it, pushing her wrist to one side with strength that could’ve easily broken it.

“You,” she gasped. 

“It’s not him,” Batman repeated, then clicked on a small but powerful beam of light, directing her attention to the corpse’s left hand. Fingernails intact. Whoever it was, he was wearing Clark’s clothes, but it wasn’t Clark. She could see it now, the slight height difference, the heavily made up face that, upon closer inspection, was someone else entirely.

“But what…” she whirled around to see that Batman was already walking out. Numbly, she followed him. “Wait…”

The police were waiting outside, their blue and red lights blinding her. She saw the insignia of the GCPD on the patrol cars. Batman was already talking in a terse and clipped voice to a broad-shouldered, gray haired man. The Commissioner, Jim Gordon.

“… inside. You’ll want an autopsy. What took you so long?”

“Paperwork, dammit. We can’t cross state lines like you can.”

One of the uniformed cops came over, offered her a blanket. She pulled her jacket tighter over the bulge of the Taser and said _no, thank you_.

“… already checked for traps, but be careful.”

“Yeah.” Gordon looked over at her. “Miss, one of my guys can give you a ride home.” Looked back at Batman in a resigned sort of way, sighed, put his hands in his pockets. “He was a good kid.”

She felt a sudden flare of temper, wanting to scream at him for talking about Clark in the past tense, but she could feel it herself, the cold despair inside of her like a lump of ice, that Clark was probably gone by now. 

Batman was moving away, striding purposefully into the darkness, and she darted to follow him.

“Miss? Dammit, where’d she go?” she heard Gordon mutter in the distance.

“Where are you going?” she demanded at Batman’s back. She was nearly jogging to keep up with him, kicking up bits of broken brick and snow. She followed him down an alleyway, then flinched, as the whole place was lit up by a pair of headlights. Saw him open the door a car that seemed more like a tank.

“Where are you going?” she repeated, yelling over the roar of the engines.

He looked back at her. “Gotham.”

“Why?”

“That’s where he is. I’m getting him back.”

A traitorous stammer, “But what if… what if he’s…” _Already dead?_

He gave her a long look over the dark shoulder of his cape. “I’m still getting him back.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So while it was tempting to make Martha instantly supportive and accepting of Bruce, I was thinking: if I was a mom and only knew Bruce by reputation, then I probably wouldn't want him dating my kid. So for the moment, she's still a little skeptical. 
> 
> Thank you so much for reading and sticking with this story!! Feedback is always appreciated!!


	11. Intimate

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clark suffers yet another humiliation at the hands of his captors.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For this chapter, please do heed the warning tags. If any of the listed tags disturb you, please consider giving this chapter a skip. (Though I hope you'll read it anyway, of course!) 
> 
> No copyright infringement intended, no profits made!

“Here. Present for you.”

Croc slid something across the floor and it bumped into his nail-less left hand. He managed a gurgle of a protest, and tucked his hand into his chin, curled up tighter on his side. He didn’t want to open his eyes. Didn’t want to see the ugly cellar walls and the cracked tiles that were poking into his naked body. He especially didn’t want to see Croc’s hulking form, but he could feel the vibration of the monster’s steps under his cheek and could picture in his mind that sloping, frustrated pacing: four steps forward, _boom-boom-boom-boom,_ then four steps back, _boom-boom-boom-boom._

With a detached sort of disgust, he realized that he’d developed an almost intimate knowledge of Croc’s habits. The way his jaw clicked when he spoke. His speech patterns. The way he stretched, head going back in a long, circular roll, chest puffing out in a sigh. What he smelled like after he ate. What he smelled like after sex.

When he was calm, he would sit himself next to Clark on the floor, maybe smoking, stroke Clark’s hair, and talk. He talked about history’s most notorious cannibals like a kid talking about a favorite baseball team, going into grotesque detail about their killing and eating habits. The Butcher of Rostov. Sawney Bean. Dahmer. He talked about the murders he’d committed, the flesh he’d eaten, smacking his lips while he reminisced. He made vague, cheerful threats while blowing smoke into Clark’s face, peering at Clark to watch him squirm. _I have to kill you sooner or later. The Clown says it’s up to me how to do it, but it’s gotta happen sooner or later. Hoo boy. Not that I’m complaining, but it’s damn stupid of him. You’re worth more alive. He can sell you, make some good cash. Not everyone likes little boys. Some of them like their boys_ big, _like you. But I guess after I kill you, Joker can get good cash for your organs too. It’s what happens to them Eastside whores if they die on the job, their bits get sold on the black market. Always someone looking for fresh kidneys._

When he was frustrated, he’d pace the cellar like a caged animal, rubbing at his scalp, kicking at the wall, and then rushing over to aim a kick or punch at Clark’s curled body. He reminded Clark of the schoolyard bullies that used to push him around before his teenage growth spurt kicked in. Bored and stir-crazy, petulant and nasty and sometimes childish, but with real menace lurking behind those angry-scrunched eyes. _You think you’re smarter’n me, Kent? Huh? Huh? What you looking at, Kent? Huh?_ Words punctuated by a light smack or a shove. Except Croc wasn’t a budding adolescent yet to grow into good sense, but a stone-cold murderer. And his offhanded acts of violence were vicious and damaging.

Clark opened his eyes a crack and looked at the object Croc had flung his way, then immediately wished he hadn’t. It was a tub of Vaseline.

“Use it,” Croc snapped at him. Then grinned. “Finger yourself. I want to watch you.”

This was a new humiliation. It turned his stomach, the way Croc was leering down at him, as if expecting to be repaid for a favor. “No.”

 

Croc made a frustrated grunting noise, slapping at the back of his neck like he had an itch. “Do it,” he growled. “Or I’ll do it for you.”

“Go to Hell.”

He saw the kick coming, aimed at his ribs, and blocked it with his arms. It still sent him rolling across the tiles until he was stopped by the chain on his leg, which was anchored to a nearby pipe. He coughed and it hurt, but coughing was better than laughing.

Croc bent down and grabbed him by the hair, shaking him. “I’m fucking you tonight whether you like it or not. You can lube yourself up and make it easier for both of us, or I’ll fuck you dry and I’ll make it _hurt_. Then I’ll do your mouth. You hate that, don’t you? Piss me off, and maybe I’ll cut another hole in you and fuck it when I’m done with _this_ one.”

A finger was shoved into Clark’s abused entrance, making him cry out, tears springing to his eyes. He tensed up, expecting Croc to start fingering him brutally, but the blunt intruder withdrew, leaving him shaking.

The Vaseline was shoved at him again, the letters on the blue label seeming obscene. Croc rocked back on his heels, staring down at Clark, his gaze almost a physical coercion: _you’d better make this worth my while_.

That old schoolyard taunt. _Empty your pockets, Kent. This better be worth it. Do it now._

He considered disobeying, then pictured the rage that would ensue. He’d be violated again. He would be beaten again. He would be made to service the monster until he passed out or until Croc got bored. Worse, Croc had been muttering and stomping all day, growling about how much he wanted to go out and _hunt_ , and Clark pictured him dissatisfied and angry, prowling the streets looking for his fill with Clark’s blood still drying on him, until someone in the wrong place at the wrong time fell victim to his appetite.  

He was so tired. He’d been resisting for so long, and it always brought him more hurt. Resisting was always worse than just giving in.

“Do it. Now.” A hissy, spitty command.

Stomach queasy, he reached for the plastic tub. Unscrewing the lid was difficult with an injured hand and another one that was red from cold, but he managed it after a few tries. It clattered to the floor and rolled dizzily before wobbling into a greasy circle. He hesitated a moment before sticking in two shaking fingers, scooping out a miniscule glob of jelly.

Under Croc’s scrutiny, he brought it down between his legs and eased it into himself, spreading it over his sore entrance. Went back for more. Gathered another small blob on his fingertips. Entered himself as gently as he could, with one finger, then another, gasping at the effort.

He flinched when Croc sat down heavily against the adjacent wall and started to fondle his cock, stroking it erect with his eyes still on Clark.

“C’mere,” he said, spreading his legs to dsplay his protruding member. It was hard, jutting, stabbing upwards at the ceiling and Clark shuddered at the sight of it. “Come _here_. I want you to ride me.”

He didn’t want to. The thought of it sickened him. He didn’t want to rape himself on that huge cock. He was barely prepared, his entrance just slightly oiled. He needed more time.

A warning growl. “Don’t make me come get you.” An unspoken warning.

Resisting was worse than giving in. Was worse than giving in…

It took all of his strength to crawl over the few feet to Croc, the heavy chain on his leg a dead, clanking weight. He was shaking by the time he was straddling the naked beast, his thighs trembling and burning with the effort, lowering himself so that the tip of Croc’s member was pressing lightly against his entrance.

Cringing, dreading the pain that was to come, he braced himself with a hand on Croc’s shoulder, and reached down to take the mammoth cock in his other hand, guiding it to himself, ignoring the man’s throaty taunt, “Do it, you know you want it, fuck yourself on it.”

He winced when the tip breached him, heard a keening sound that he realized was his own voice. Pain immediately flared up around that taut ring of muscle, had him gasping, sweat beading on his forehead. Croc shifted and he nearly screamed, the movement driving it deeper into him.

His thighs were trembling with the effort of keeping himself upright, fighting gravity so that the pain in his rectum would be easier to bear. It was exhausting. He could feel himself growing faint, dizzy.

An impatient grunt from Croc told him that he’d better hurry. He started lowering himself, _slowly_ , inch by pained inch, biting his lip to keep from sobbing aloud.

He couldn’t do it. Halfway down, panting from effort and blinking tears from his eyes, he stopped and couldn’t go on. The cock piercing him had widened unbearably. Pain was searing up his rectum, older wounds reopening, and it _hurt_ too much to keep going. Croc felt huge, somehow bigger than all the other times he’d been inside Clark. He reached down a tentative finger, touching the rim of his entrance to try to loosen himself, then pulled back in fear when he felt blood. His knees shook.

“What are you waiting for?” Croc growled. “Take it all in.”

“I can’t!” Clark sobbed. “Please… I can’t.”

“I’ll do it.”

Croc grabbed him by the buttocks and shoved down while thrusting brutally upwards.

He must have shrieked. His throat hurt and the room was echoing with a shrill cry of pain, so he must have shrieked. He saw nothing but brightness for a while, heard nothing but the sound of blood rushing in his ears. He felt nothing but anguish. When he came to his senses, he was sagged against Croc’s thick torso, impaled agonizingly to the hilt. His breathing was ragged and wet with tears.

His face was pressed against the center of that scaly chest, and he found it comforting in a dreamlike way, the beating of Croc’s heart against his cheek. Every other part of Croc was a weapon, an instrument of hurt, his fists, his feet, his teeth, his cock. Those invasive fingers. Those knees that always shoved between his thighs to open him up before he was taken on the cold floor. Those eyes that raked his naked body even in the dark. Only that heart, that innocuous organ, was harmless, beating innocently, _thump-thump._

Vaguely, he felt Croc’s bruising grip on his hips, lifting him up so that the iron length inside him slid out. He moaned at the withdrawal, then cried out as he was slammed downwards again, then Croc was rocking back and forth, thrusting into him, jittering him up and down so that he was impaled again and again on that rock-hard cock.

Croc was panting now, laughing lowly. “You’re so tight. _Still_ so tight. So good. Tell me you want it. Tell me you love it.”

Clark stared disbelievingly at him. “No.”

A smack to the side of the head. “Say it.”

“No,” he sobbed through gritted teeth.

“Say it, or I’ll make it hurt worse.”

How could it possibly be worse? He shook his head, defiant. Expected another smack or a punch, a pair of thumbs jammed in alongside the cock inside him, prying him apart.

Instead, Croc did something far worse.

A kiss was pressed to the side of Clark’s neck, then a trail of kisses down his chest. A hot tongue lapped at his nipple, the other rolled between surprisingly gently fingers. His own limp penis was gently cupped and stroked. Unbidden, a spark of arousal began to fan out from these ministrations, and his tortured body welcomed it.

He had missed pleasure. He had missed it so much, feeling good. Warmth and gentleness. It felt like an eternity since someone had cared enough to make him feel good. Most of all, he missed Bruce.

Against his will, he started to harden, even as Croc continued to thrust painfully inside him. He was moaning and shuddering, but it was no longer only in pain. 

Pain he could handle. Pain he could compartmentalize, let himself drift away, let his mind wander anywhere else but here. But pleasure was different, especially in this position: him straddling a much bigger man, pressed against firm muscles. He couldn’t be pleasured without thinking of making love to Bruce, who had been his first and his only, without imagining himself miles away in a familiar bed, soft sheets and rumpled duvet, Bruce’s hand in his hair, Bruce’s pleasure-dazed, wondrous smile mirroring his own. This brought him happiness and anguish in equal measure.

Croc was stroking him steadily now, rubbing precum in circles over his sensitive head. Hot kisses on his neck, moist breath in his ear, ticklish, the way he liked it. It mystified him, that Croc somehow knew what he liked. A shift, and his prostate was stimulated, making him gasp.

And he welcomed it. While painfully aware that it was a betrayal of Bruce and that he should have been resisting with all his might, he welcomed pleasure the way a starving man would welcome a morsel of food against his lips. He welcomed it like healing ointment on a wound. It was a warmth that spread throughout his pain-ravaged body, that made him feel human again.

Croc laughed, “Say it, Baby. Say you want it.” A few extra hard thrusts that were a mix of pleasure and pain.

Clark moaned helplessly, head thrown back. A clawed hand grabbed at his hair, pulling back so that he was facing the ceiling, his neck exposed. A kiss at the tender pulse at his throat. “Please…”

“Say it.” A hand on his cock, no longer stroking, but simply pressing steadily down.

“Bruce!” he sobbed, and he was awash in pleasure, his orgasm crashing over him like a warm wave. His seed shot between their bodies, drenching them both in wetness, his puckered entrance spasming around Croc. For a second, he was floating, far above the ugliness around him. For a second, he was free.

The euphoria lasted only a second before it was replaced by nausea, horror, and cold disgust at what he’d done. His eyes wide but blurred with tears, he shivered as he came down from his high, slumping forwards to rest his head on Croc’s shoulder.

“No…”

He wished he could die. Joker and his monster had taken _everything_ else from him but this, and he’d given it away like it was something cheap. He was vile.

“Don’t cry, Baby,” Croc crooned mockingly. With little effort, he lifted Clark off him by the waist and flipped him over, so his face was mashed to the cold floor and his weeping was muffled, ass sticking up and knees spread wide, that helplessly clenching pucker on display. “I’m not even close to done yet.”

And he sheathed himself back into Clark in a single brutal thrust, then pounded into him again and again, until the room echoed with screams and the sounds of slapping flesh.

 

X

 

A muffled thump came from somewhere far away, another room. Joker ignored it, eyes riveted to the video footage on the computer screen. It was one of his favorites.

The Metropolis reporter was beautiful, even displayed in grainy surveillance footage, even under matted hair and filth and dried semen, the indignities of captivity. He cried so prettily with Croc’s cock in his ass, writhing on Croc’s lap like a harem whore as he moaned soundlessly.

Another thump, and the muffled pop of gunfire. The henchman standing next to Joker shifted nervously, his hands clutching the stock and barrel of his gun, eyes darting towards the reinforced door of the room they were in.

_Here comes the money shot_ , Joker thought, and sweet Clark threw his head back, arching gracefully as he came, crying like he half loved it and half wanted to die. That exquisite expression of devastation. Those lovely tears.

“H-hey… Boss…”

Joker smiled. Smoothed the crease of his purple pants with a long-fingered hand. Savored the last few minutes of the video clip: Croc flipping the kid over and getting his satisfaction, fucking the boy over and over until Kent was lying limp, unconscious, then continuing to thrust, the rag-doll body jerking against the linoleum floor.

“Boss? I think something’s happenin’ out there, should we…?”

Joker held up a finger, silencing him. The video came to an end. He twirled his finger extravagantly through the air and hit the Replay button, setting the chain of events in motion again. He checked his watch, noted that he had just enough time to watch it twice more, then it was showtime.

30 seconds in, he snapped his fingers at the nervous henchman as if just remembering his presence. “Get Croc on the radio. Tell him if there’s any fun left to be had, do it now.” Somewhere above them came the dull thud of a body hitting the floorboards, the crunch of metal, a shout cut short.

He smiled widely at no one in particular.

“The Knight is here.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much for reading this chapter, even if it's not to everyone's taste!
> 
> Any feedback is always highly appreciated!


	12. Need

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Batman is finally reunited with Clark.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No copyright infringement intended, no profits made! Please heed the warnings and tags posted above.

The abandoned seaport warehouse had been turned into a fairground.  

Batman stood in the doorway, his broad shoulders brushing the metal frame, and let the assault of sight and sound wash over him.

Jangly, discordant carnival music blasted from wall-mounted speakers, the kind of music that curdled your insides, drove you mad, made you see colors even when there weren’t any. Not that Joker’s setup lacked colors.

The warehouse had once stored dilapidated carnival rides. Disassembled booths, a carousel, bumper cars shaped like animals. Quietly, they’d rusted away over the years until Joker had revived them like a laughing Frankenstein, a bolt of electricity bringing them to life so that they danced once more. The whole place was lit up, colors galore. Booth signs flashed. Garish horses with cracked grins spun in a mad circle. A giant clown’s mouth, once part of a minigolf course, snapped open and shut, devouring endlessly, splashes of red paint making it look like it was bleeding from the eyes. The rafters were strung with Christmas lights and among the bulbs, Harley Quinn was swinging from a trapeze, leg poised, head thrown back, laughing melodically.

And then there were the screens. LED displays, mounted around the room like carnival posters. They flashed videos footage of Joker’s grisly murders. Lizzie Stride’s weeping face was wedged between a flashing FUN sign and a giant ice cream cone. Serge Marko bled and screamed from a screen suspended spidery wires. Alex Chapel laughed and gurgled blood on a loop, propped up against an inflatable castle. And Clark… _oh, Clark…_

Joker himself was nowhere to be seen, but his laughter was crackling out over the speakers, a mad accompaniment to the music and screams. Henchmen peered out over the arched backs of carousel horses as they swirled around, from between slats of cheerfully painted wood. He counted about 40 of them. Some of them wore clown masks. Some were made up with greasepaint. Some just wore hoodies pulled low. Dispassionately, Batman assessed their weapons. Submachine guns. Handguns. Switchblades. Leather cudgels.

He clenched his fists, which were already covered in dried blood, the blood he’d trailed throughout Gotham until he found this place.

He took a step forward and breathed deeply, let the madness engulf him for a second. Then kicked the door closed behind him and bolted it.

“Come and get it.”

 

X

 

Croc was wearing clothes.

Clark had gotten so used to seeing him unashamedly naked that it was almost comical, to see Croc wearing jeans and boots.

“It’s time,” rumbled the beast, and advanced on Clark, who curled himself even tighter against the corner of the room. It didn’t need to be said what he meant by “its time.”

“You’ve been a good sport. We’ve had fun, haven’t we? I think I liked you best out of all the others. So here’s a little present from me to you.” Croc brandished a needle at him, grinning. “This’ll make you happy. You won’t feel a thing when the time comes.”

He put up a weak struggle when his bicep was grabbed, but Croc simply punched him hard in the face and he went limp, his vision blacking out for a second. He barely felt the pinprick in his arm, but definitely felt the wave of euphoria that followed. It filled him and trickled into him bit by bit, like he’d drunk something hot and comforting. He felt giddy, and could hear himself laughing aloud at the thought that Croc was wearing clothes. A reptile in jeans. Fun.

He felt light, like he’d expanded into a fleshy balloon and he was floating towards the clouds, the ground falling away from him, then he realized that he’d been lifted up onto Croc’s shoulder and that they were moving. The world tilted, sand tipping from one end of the scale to the other, and he was swinging, head knocking into the small of Croc’s back. He heard the cellar door grate open and felt a rush of cold air on his naked skin, but for once, he didn’t shiver.

“Let’s go, Baby. Let’s get far away from here. Boss doesn’t want blood on the floor.”

X

 

_“Bruce!”_

The shrill cry cut through the white noise of the fight and Batman froze, hand wrapped around someone’s gurgling throat, elbow mid-swing from smashing into a paint-smeared face.

_Clark…_

He realized almost instantly that it was a recording, nothing but a grotesque soundbite interspersed with the rest of Joker’s circus music, but the sound of his name cut through him like an ice shard. He froze for one crucial, unforgivable second, like an arctic animal caught in a flash freeze, fur prickling into icicles, mouth open on a scavenged bite, cold-shocked and horrified.

He didn’t have time to search out the video footage that corresponded to that desperate plea, didn’t have time to see what horror Clark was begging to be saved from. They were on him in a flash.

Four or five of them jumped him, and he was still too stunned to roll into a controlled fall like he was so supposed to, so he fell badly, painfully, them crushing him to the ground. Sharks at a feeding frenzy, they clawed and beat at him, bellowing their rage at the sight of blood. A crackling cattle prod hit him in the neck. His suit was immune to electrical shocks, but the blow still made his teeth rattle. One of them shot at him, a stupid thing to do at close quarters. The bullet ricocheted off his gauntlet and hit an adjacent goon in the side.

_“Bruce!”_ Clark had cried out for him, but instead of letting that cry break him, weaken him, he forced it deeper into himself like a self-applied shot to the heart, painful as hell but necessary, let it sharpen his senses, strengthen him, narrow his focus into red pinpoints.

Tucking his chin so they couldn’t choke him, he let their batons and their fists bounce off his armor, then twisted his body so he could flick a button on his belt. An electric current crackled through the exterior layer of armor and sent them off him like zapped flies.

He rolled into a crouch and sprang up into his next punch, straight up, and felt bone break and blood splash the exposed part of his face.

Standing again, he smiled grimly. These weren’t trained soldiers. They weren’t even mafia, but low-level crooks, the only ones Joker could afford. Some of them, judging by their garish paint and costumes, were simply run-of-the-mill fanatics with crappy day jobs and disappointed families, as crazy as Harley Quinn with none of the skill. Their type of violence was spirited but wholly unimpressive.

They circled him like they were wolves and he was the prey that wandered into their midst. One brave, jittery henchman rushed forward at a run, swinging an iron bar. He sidestepped and grabbed the bar and the crook’s wrist, then twisted it viciously, snapping bone.

He palmed a razor sharp batarang and turned a slow circle at the rest of them, marking each of them with his gaze.

_None of you will touch him again. Never again._

 

 

X

 

Clark was cold again. He was lying on the ground somewhere and his skin hurt. It was freezing.

He could hear running water somewhere far off. It smelled woodsy, like he was in a park somewhere. He could hear the papery rustle of leaves in the wind. Closer to him, he heard Croc grunting and moving something heavy and jangly, like a length of chain. He heard the metallic scrape of a knife, and wondered in a detached sort of way if this is where he’d be butchered. Filleted, skinned, flesh separated from his bones before he was left to sway and desiccate in the wind, left for someone to find and scream at in horror, like the other victims before him.

He tried to move his legs and found that they were still chained. He couldn’t get far anyway. His limbs were wretched, heavy and his eyesight was spotty. His head was pulsing with pain.

What happened between them leaving the cellar and arriving at this spot (his final resting place) was a blur, but he had the vague memory of sewer smell and the close, dank air of an underground tunnel.

He cupped his red hands together for warmth, and felt the coldness of his ring. Bruce’s ring. He realized with a surprised bubble of happiness that he was a fiancé. Well, he hadn’t said the words yet, but yes, he was promised. He was beloved. It made him smile, despite everything.

The ground rumbled with Croc’s arrival and whatever horror he was planning, but it was almost a comfort to know that it would all be over soon.

“I love you,” he whispered into his hand, and kissed the inside of his ring finger, the diamonds imprinting his broken lip. “Goodbye.” And then softer, almost soundlessly, “I do.”

A rough hand grabbed him and flipped him over so he was on his back, his vulnerable front exposed to the air. Croc lightly slapped his face, then tugged at an eyelid, checking his retina.

“You out of it yet? No? Shit, this stuff’s supposed to be stronger. I’ll give you another hit.”

It was tempting. Dying in a fit of giggles, body free and floating, didn’t seem like a bad way to go. But then he thought of his mother seeing his rictus grin splashed across the papers. He thought of Lois, the sweetest and gentlest friend he never deserved. His father, who’d died on his feet. And Bruce. And Bruce. And Bruce.

“I don’t want it,” he said, sounding clearer and more coherent then he’d had in days.

Croc leaned back and looked at him, leering. “No? It’s gonna hurt real bad.”

“Don’t care. Just make it quick.”

Croc looked confused for a moment, tilted his head to the side, considering. Then burped out a low rumble of laughter. “I like that. Dying with dignity.” Then abruptly slipped a leather collar around Clark’s neck, shifted behind him, and _yanked_.

He choked. His head felt like it was going to explode and he frantically scrabbled for his neck on instinct, his remaining fingernails breaking against the unyielding noose, leather with a metal core, his legs twitching against the chains.

Then the pressure eased, just enough, and he coughed and coughed, bringing up blood, and he heard Croc laughing lowly over the rushing sound in his ears.

Croc sniffed the side of his neck, his hair, like he was trying to memorize Clark’s scent. “You’re somethin’ special, you know that? No begging. No whimpering. The others all begged at the end. Mmm…”

A rough tongue swiped across his face, dipped into his ear. A hand running up and down his chest, down between his legs.

“One more ride, Baby, how ‘bout it?”

“No…” he managed to wheeze, as Croc loomed over him, lifting the backs of his knees and spreading his legs, then reaching to unbutton those blue jeans. Leaned down to kiss his abused throat.

Suddenly seeing red, while simultaneously realizing his hands were now free, Clark jammed his thumbs into Croc’s reptile eyes as hard as he could. _I hate you, I hate you, get your hands off me…_

Croc roared and reared back, then grabbed and broke two of Clark’s fingers. He didn’t have time to scream, and it was too freezing numb to hurt anyway, before Croc grabbed his arm and flipped him onto his front, then continued twisting until he was sure his arm would break, pinning his wrist to his back

“Son of a bitch, little whore, you stinkin’…”

His legs were kicked apart and he groaned in pain, the old wounds on his entrance flaring up, humiliatingly, as he was exposed. Then gasped in pain when he felt two fingers shove inside him. Then three. Then four.

“I’m gonna put my fist in you. That’ll _teach_ you…”

The horror of it settled on him like ice water, the slow tear of pain making its way up his body like a gnawing animal. “No,” he moaned, struggling weakly. “Not that… please, not that.” Short gasps of pain gave way to a long, keening wail.

“ _I’m gonna fuck you on my arm, bitch!”_

His face mashed to the cold ground, his vision blacking out and clogged with tears, his body screaming with pain, he saw the flicker of a shadow across the moon.

“Please,” he whispered, like a prayer.

Then, as if he’d summoned a spirit,  the shadow grew until it was a blacked-out shape against the sky, the silhouette of a bat.

In the second it took for him to blink, Batman swung from the sky like an avenging angel and fell feet first into Croc, who was just starting to look up.

The awful pressure at his entrance was ripped away, and then Croc was tumbling off him, the ground shaking like a tree had fallen.

He curled up on his side, retching and coughing, while the sound of snarling and fists impacting came from somewhere outside of his line of sight. He sobbed dryly and couldn’t stop shaking. He was bleeding, he was bleeding _down there_ , and it wouldn’t stop, and he was damaged beyond repair, and he couldn’t stop coughing, and _Oh God, it hurts_ …

The sounds of struggle had stopped. Footsteps were approaching where he lay and he panicked, scrabbling away like a spooked animal.

“No, don’t… please no…”

He clawed at the frozen ground for leverage, leaving bloody streaks, trying to crawl away, the noose around his neck tightening as he struggled so that he was strangling himself.

“Be still, be still,” Batman was pleading with him, hands out, palms down, but all he saw was yet another monster looming over him, hands poised to hurt, feet poised to kick.

“Leave me alone…” He was choking, his voice raspy and high.

“Clark, calm down!”

“No more, please, no more…”

“It’s me! Clark, it’s me!”

And Batman reached up, released the lock on his cowl, and pulled it off.

He froze, still shaking, but no longer panicking. His panic had been doused by shock.

“It’s me,” Bruce repeated, and in the moonlight, Clark saw that his eyes were shining with tears.

“B-Bruce?” he said, then coughed again, painfully.

“Yes,” said Bruce, his voice shaky, and when he reached out, Clark didn’t flinch away.

The next moment was a blur but he somehow ended up wrapped in Bruce’s arms, the cape falling over both of them like a protective barrier, and he was sobbing, stuttering, one string of words after another, “It’s you, you came for me, it’s you…” and then, as if a dam had been broken, he was weeping unstoppably into Bruce’s armored shoulder like a child, more from emotional shock than anything else.

“It’s ok, it’s ok,” Bruce was saying, a hand on Clark’s bare back, and he was shifting Clark to lie on his side. “Don’t move.” Then he moved out of sight and Clark heard the hiss of a cutting torch. The cruel collar fell from his neck and then the chain from his leg, which Bruce grabbed and ripped away like an offending piece of garbage.

“You’re gonna be ok, Clark,” he said, gently touching Clark’s face. “We’re getting you out of here, ok? You’re alright now. I’ve got you.”

A low groan from somewhere to their right. A shift in the darkness. Croc, who wasn’t quite out cold yet.

Clark wheezed out a gasp, starting to panic again. But what truly frightened him was Bruce’s face.

He reached for the cowl, but even before it came down over his face, all the love and light had disappeared, like a match being blown out, leaving behind slate-cold eyes. Clark saw death in those eyes.

There was no cursing. No shouting. No displays of anger. Batman moved silently, like a wraith.

He advanced on Croc’s heaving form like a shadow and he slammed his elbow down into the middle of Croc’s spine like a wrecking ball.  Croc went down like a ton of bricks, but Batman heaved him up again and punched him… and kept punching. And punching.

That tough scaly skin split, then started to bleed sluggishly. Dull impacts were replaced by sharp cracks as cartilage and bone broke. Croc was unconscious, his limbs twitching from the force of Batman’s blows, and there was blood streaming down his neck…

Someone was making an awful, rasping, keening sound, and Clark realized it was himself, both hands cupped over his mouth.

A lift of that gauntleted fist, then the downward punch, again and again in the same spot, as methodical as chopping wood. Croc’s head was lolling now, his mouth a bloody mess, bits of teeth spraying out like stray splinters.  

“Bruce… stop…”

Then Batman tossed Croc to the ground, panting, and grabbed a tree-trunk arm, the arm connected to the fist that had been trying to push its way into Clark’s tortured body. Boot pressed into Croc’s shoulder, he started twisting the limb, yanking up like a farmer pulling out a root, pulling and pulling until Clark heard a dull crack that seemed to echo through the park, and the arm was flopping uselessly to the ground, a rubbery horror movie prop, damaged beyond repair.

“Bruce… please…” he wept, and reached out a hand, as if trying to grasp at the remnants of the man he loved. All he saw was death personified.

Then the glow of red metal, a hiss, the stink of scorched flesh, and Croc had a blackened, puckered brand on his forehead, and Clark thought, _he’s finished now, that’s it, it’s done._

But it wasn’t finished. Batman kicked at Croc until he was splayed out on the ground like a sacrifice, reached down and tore those blue jeans off in one harsh yank. Something razor sharp glittered in his hand, and Clark thought that it was a hunting knife, the kind that was honed to paper-thin sharpness, the kind his uncle back home used to slit the throats of dying, twitching deer, that quick cut, that warm gush of blood, those rolling animal eyes. Death in seconds. Batman was crouching over Croc that same way, like he was a hunter about to put an animal out of its misery, but he was reaching between Croc’s legs and grabbing that huge, limp penis, blade poised to saw away at that wormy flesh…

“ _Bruce, please_!” His voice cracked as it rang out, like something breaking. “ _I need you!”_

Batman stopped. Froze, actually. Then looked up, dazed, like he was waking from a dream. Turned back to look at Clark, bewildered.

“Please,” he sobbed.

The knife clattered to the ground. And he was Clark’s Bruce once again.

X

Lois didn’t realize she had to vomit until she stepped out of the Batmobile and her legs wobbled, her stomach turning greasy. She did it like the professionals did, bent over at the waist, hair tossed to the side, no splatter on her shoes.

“Destination reached,” chimed the mechanical female voice from the computer.

“Thanks,” she said dryly. Minutes ago, Batman had recalled the vehicle to his location, and the car had whipped  her across town in what felt like the worst roller coast ride in history.

The cold night air nipped at her and she shivered, drawing her coat closer and taking in her surroundings. She was at the south entrance of a park. She could see the dark green of trees bobbing in the wind, like rustling heads nodding.

Then through the wrought iron gates, Batman. He was cradling someone in his arms, cape tucked around the unconscious form, head lowered over his burden as he walked.

“Clark!” she gasped, her heart seizing for a second before she saw that _yes_ he was still breathing. His bare feet dangling over Batman’s arm were blackened and bleeding, swaying with each step. She could see a glimpse of his face and barely recognized it for the grime and the bruises, but _yes_ Clark was alive.

“There’s an emergency med kit in the back,” was Batman’s greeting, and she was already scrambling back into the Batmobile for it, yanking out the kit and the heat blanket, wrapping it around Clark as Bruce passed the unconscious body to her.

“What did they do to you?” she whispered, hand over her mouth as she saw a glimpse of that shrunken, lacerated body.

Clark murmured something and his head lolled to the side, so she propped him up as best as she could, fastening the seatbelt around his chest, resting his head on her shoulder.

“I’ve programmed the Batmobile to take you to the nearest hospital,” said Batman, a hand still on Clark’s shoulder, as if he couldn’t bear to let go.

She nodded. “I know.”

“The Joker’s still out there…” he said, sounding torn.

“It’s ok,” she said. “Go.”

“Please… take care of him.”

“I will. Go.”

He nodded and pressed a button on his wrist. The door slid closed with a magnetic hum.

“Navigating,” chimed the computer, and they were off with a jerk and a squeal of tires. An arm around Clark, she peered out the window, and saw the silhouette of a bat in flight.

 

X

 

It went down the way it always did. Joker and him. Him and Joker. It the end, it always came down to the two of them.

This time, it ended with him chasing Joker across the Gotham rooftops.

“Look up,” his mother had told him once, when he was still a child and his world was on the ground below. “The city is beautiful.”

But now, as he dodged the various traps that the Joker had laid for him, swatting them out of the way as if they were flies, he had nowhere to look but down, down into the city and all its madness and ugliness.

“I take it you’ve liberated my favorite patient?” Joker taunted, even as Batman had him cornered against the edge of a crumbling building, the masonry leaning to the side like a propped book.

“You’ll never touch him again,” he growled.

“Oh but he can’t check out of the asylum yet. He hasn’t been cured. Terrible but not uncommon condition. See, he thinks he’s sane. Normal. But he’s just as twisted as I am. The work is getting him to admit it. I’ve tried so hard to-”

Batman cut him off midsentence by springing forward and throwing all his weight into the punch that connected with Joker’s face. It sent the clown over the edge and Batman leaped for him, grabbing his shirtfront and hoisting him up before he fell.

A searing pain. He looked down and saw that Joker’s hand was holding a knife and the blade was lodged in his side.

“So predictable,” said the clown, smiling a wound of a smile. “If you were going to kill me, you’d have done it years ago. Though I must say, I haven’t seen you this worked up since I swatted your little bird boy out of the sky.”

“Don’t you dare speak his name!” Batman roared, and flung Joker across the roof deck. He clutched the wound in his side. The knife had fallen out and he was leaking blood like an engine leaking oil. Wincing, he drew out an injector from his belt and fired hot glue into the wound, sealing it.

“Batman’s got a bat-crush!” Joker sing-songed, standing up and casually wiping the blood from his mouth like it was no big deal. “Just what do you see in a small-town hick like him, anyway? It can’t be for his reporting skills, since he’s stupid enough to hang around you. If he did any research on you, he’d know how your friends usually end up…”

He grabbed Joker and slammed him against a crumbling brick wall. They were both of them tiring out, breathing hard. Voices tight with tension. “Who sent you after Kent? Who?”

“Ah-ah. Ever heard of confidentiality of sources?”

Another slam against the wall. A pained, laughing wheeze from the Joker. “ _Who?_ Was it Luthor? _”_

“So agitated. You really have it bad, don’t you? Or is it him who has it bad? The way he chases you around, it’s either sweet or sickening, and not at all funny. That’s why I took the job. I knew you’d come after him.”

“ _Who was it?_ ”

“Nobody interesting,” Joker giggled, and Batman grabbed his throat, crushing his windpipe, wanting to squeeze and squeeze until he heard that death rattle. Black rage thudded in his chest like an extra organ, pumping hate into every vein.  

“Do it,” Joker croaked, bug-eyed and teeth bared. Laughing. Challenging him.

_Bruce please, I need you_.

Clark’s voice. Clark’s plea.

His grip relaxed. Joker’s breath came out like a whistling kettle.

“I won’t kill you,” said Batman. Then punched Joker in the face. Watched him crumble, then hefted him up again and brought him close so they were snarling at each other face to face. “But I’ll show you just how _damaged_ you can get.”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *WHEW* the reunion was a long time coming. The last line of the chapter is a reference to the DAMAGED tattoo Joker has in the Suicide Squad movie. Not sure where I read it, but he's supposed to have gotten that after Batman knocked out all his teeth for killing Jason Todd. 
> 
> Thank you so much for reading!!! As always, feedback is greatly appreciated!!


	13. Numb

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clark recovers at the hospital.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the long hiatus! No copyright infringement intended, no profits made!

Lois rubbed her arms against the chill of the hospital room.

It was finally quiet. After the police, the press, and the nurse that seemed to want to bleed Clark dry with her syringes had _finally_ gone, it was quiet and Clark was sleeping.

Lois had watched from behind a glass door as a trio of detectives had questioned Clark. A lone reporter she didn’t recognize had scribbled down Clark’s weak answers. Clark had thrown her a look from inside the room, the wide-eyed panicky look of a prisoner being interrogated, even though police had fairly dripped with tact –  voices so gentle they cracked, arms held stiffly, non-threateningly at their sides.

“He’s not in any danger, Martha. Don’t worry.” Her shoulder ached from propping the phone to her jaw. It was the last call (last, because it was the most heartbreaking one, the one she was least looking forward to) of many that she had made in the past hour. From the tinny frequencies over the phone, Martha Kent sounded like the kind of woman who fussed and whined over little things but got steely calm in a crisis. “No, no, he’s sleeping now. I… don’t want to lie, he’s not in good shape. But he’s stable.”

The hospital room was cold and dark. The lights were off with only a square of white light from the hallway fluorescents for illumination. Hovering over Clark, she touched his wrist and found it clammy despite two hospital fleece blankets. Still _mm-hmm_ ing at Martha, she walked across the room to grab her coat, brought it back to spread it over him. Froze in her tracks.

“Martha, I have to call you back.”

The window was open and Batman was standing at the side of Clark’s bed – except the cowl was missing and the hand that was cupping Clark’s cheek was gloveless – so it was an unsettling amalgamation of Batman and a very tired, very battered Bruce Wayne.

A gasp bubbled up and died in her throat. Swiftly, Lois drew the privacy curtain, surrounding them in fuzzy blue plastic. 

“Bruce, what…?”

“I did this to him,” he murmured. He looked bad. His head drooped as he gazed down at Clark. There was a smear of dried blood on his chin from a wound that had been swiped clean.

“You didn’t,” she protested, whispering. “You saved him.”

“I brought him into my world.” His knuckles brushed Clark’s battered cheek. “And this is what happened.”

“The Joker, is he…?” she started then trailed off. If the Joker was anything but dead or incapacitated, Batman wouldn’t even be here. “You’re hurt. You need medical attention.”

 

His eyes had a dazed, concussed glaze to them. She could smell blood and gunpowder on him, cutting through the bleached smell of the hospital. He looked like he could use the IV in Clark’s arm, the tubes in his nose.

He didn’t respond. Her words plinked off him like raindrops as he gazed down at Clark, finger pads barely touching the bruised-fruit skin.

“Don’t go after Luthor,” she said suddenly. 

He looked up slowly at that, and the expression on his face was almost a sneer, like he’d just realized she was there and decided she had no business being there.

“We don’t have enough on him,” she insisted. “He’s not a Gotham crook. You won’t be able to intimidate him. If… if we’re right about him being involved and why, you’ll just paint a target on Clark’s back if you go after him.”

His head drooped towards Clark again. She felt her chest ache for the both of them.

“ _Bruce_. Please listen to me. He’s not someone you can defeat in the shadows. We need to drag him into the light.”

There came the squeak of wheels from the doorway, and Lois started, waited for a nurse to push in with a cart or a blood pressure machine. She peeked out from behind the curtain, but the wheels kept going, past Clark’s room and down the hall.

When she turned back, Batman was just rising from bending over Clark’s head, after pressing a kiss to Clark’s cheek, perhaps whispering in his ear. The cowl came down again and he spared her a quick glance before alighting the window, gone in a flash of dark cape.

X

He thought felt a kiss on his cheek, and the most comforting voice in the world whispering, “goodbye.” But it must have been a dream.

Clark was jolted briefly awake by the moving hospital bed. Through cracked eyelids, he got the blurred impression of a hallway sliding past, green scrubs and muscular arms, the _ding_ of an elevator, and a wisp of Lois’ perfume, before he forced himself back into a light doze. Dozing was preferable to either sleep or wakefulness. It was that safe fuzzy layer between reality and dreams.

He was grateful for the periodic blood pressure readings, the switching of the IV bags throughout the night. It stirred him, kept the darkness at bay.

When he woke up properly, the sun was shining full force through venetian blinds, and it took him a few blinks to notice that he was no longer in the same room. Instead of washed-out beige, the walls were yellow as sunny yolks, with wood paneling and tasteful paintings of sailboats. The furniture was glossy wood and upholstered with brocade.

An upgrade. How nice.

At lunchtime, the nurse brought him a chocolate milkshake in a hospital sippy cup and said kindly, “Mr. Wayne said you’ve a sweet tooth.”

He took a few obedient sips and waited for _Mr. Wayne_ to show up, aching painfully with longing.

He refused morphine when they offered it to him. He hated the feeling of it, the quick jab of pressure at his forehead, the swoop of nausea, then cotton-haziness and euphoria. Even though the world was painfully clear, all brittle angles and sharp colors, he preferred it to the artificial dizziness of drugs. It reminded him of laughter and mirrors and the taste of blood.

Lois appeared after they finished his chest x-ray, with the flustered familiarity of someone who’d already been in and out of the hospital to see him many times before. “Hey Smallville,” she greeted, then pressed a dry kiss to his forehead like she was welcoming him home. His eyes watered.

She brought him books and clean clothes, and his Superman mug. Ate ice cream off his plate, tossed her shoes off so she could curl up next to him. Threw open the ensuite bathroom to exclaim that the bathtub had jets. She held his IV for him, eyes carefully averted, as he lowered himself into the bath. The thought of anything striking his skin, even water droplets from the shower, was unbearable.

Later in the afternoon, she told him softly and briefly how frenzied everyone at the office had been when he’d gone missing, and the police’s ensuing manhunt, their relief when he’d been found. She drew the blinds tightly against the horde of reporters outside, and studiously avoided the news channels as they watched television.

“Did you know?” he whispered hoarsely. Everything he said was hoarse, a wheezing gasp of a conversation. “About him?”

She tugged at a lock of hair for a moment, bit her lip, before saying, “I only just found out. Recently.”

It was too painful to talk about, so they both lapsed into silence.  

Perry came and brought a gift basket of Christmas cookies, cider, and paperback copies of Charles Dickens. He talked about his family, his latest vacation, and who embarrassed who at the office party. There was one point where his voice cracked and turned wet, but he recovered quickly. Clark was grateful. It was a special type of heartbreaking to have Perry cry for him.

Then Mom showed up in a snow-crusted coat and rumpled blouse, and he tried, he tried, to smile and crack a joke, but his mouth crumpled like a wet bag in a storm and he hadn’t realized how much he missed her, and he couldn’t hold back the tears as she hugged him and refused to let go. 

But at the end of the day, still no Bruce.

X

Bruce only visited once. Attempted to visit. Holding a handful of wildflowers, a faded pastel offering for a room that was already full of flowers and fresh fruit, he stood in the doorway and couldn’t cross the threshold.

Martha Kent sat by the foot of Clark’s bed, a hand resting on the blanket near the bump of his toes. She dozed in her chair, her face wrinkled even in sleep. Lois sat in the corner chair and clicked away at her work phone. She was wearing heels and a striped blazer, looking aggravated and tired. He could see a healing scab on her knee under the sheer stocking.

There were get-well cards haphazardly stacked between a vase of orchids and a bunch of grapes. One of them appeared to be hand drawn in crayon.

He felt frozen, unbalanced. On hand gripped the door jamb, like he was afraid of being pried loose. Afraid of being going in or being made to leave, he wasn’t sure. From his vantage point, he could see the rise and fall of Clark’s chest, but couldn’t bring himself to shift the few inches that would allow him to peer over the wall and see Clark’s face.

Martha stirred in her chair, hand straying to her graying temple as if her dream was giving her a headache. For a woman whose husband had died and whose son had been tortured and almost killed, it wasn’t hard to imagine her nightmares. He was suddenly filled with a deep, terrifying shame. He couldn’t go in. He couldn’t face her, or her son that he’d failed. He left as quickly as if he’d been burned.

He dropped the handful of flowers he’d picked from the Wayne Manor grounds and stepped them into the cigarette-strewn sidewalk as he strode to the waiting car, crumbling them into powder.

X

While Clark healed, he kept watch. By night, he watched over Gotham. By day, he hunched over the surveillance system with no less attention than he gave to his beloved city, and drank scotch, the heat burning him like shame.

He watched Clark cough and stare up at the ceiling with glassy eyes for hours, only pasting a smile on his face when Lois or his mother came to visit. He watched the regiment of blood tests and breathing tubes and IV’s. He watched Jenny from Clark’s office visit with one of the kittens smuggled in her purse. Leonard, the three-legged one. It hooked tiny claws into Clark’s blanket and bit Clark’s finger, and Bruce, eyes aching and hands tight on the arms of his chair, was rewarded with a genuine smile and the crackly sound of Clark’s laugh, which disappeared all too quickly.

He watched three solid-looking men stride into Clark’s room, Clark sitting up in surprise, only to be shoved back down by the tallest of them. Bruce was halfway to standing, fists clenched for violence, when he realized that Clark was smiling and that it was more of a no-please-don’t-get-up kind of gesture.

“Steve,” said Clark, and Bruce felt an irrational stab of jealousy at Clark’s unknown male friends. They sat and talked like old war buddies, played cards on Clark’s bedspread, drank sodas from the mini-fridge. One of them took out a cigarette and the others shooed him out with exaggerated outrage. They didn’t leave until late in the afternoon and Steve clasped Clark’s forearm, pulled him close, and knocked their foreheads together in farewell.

“I’ll need a leech at Luthor’s house,” Bruce all but growled at Alfred later that night.

“Would that be before or after you visit Mr. Kent at the hospital?” said Alfred, setting down a covered plate. It smelled like Christmas turkey.

He ignored Alfred. “And I’ll need the suit to do it.”

“As you wish, Sir.”

He stared at the crime reports on the nearest screen and ignored Alfred’s sigh and the deliberate clinking of silverware being set out.

“So what now?” the butler said in a tired voice.

“Now? The usual. Investigate. If the leech reveals anything-”

“I meant what now for you and him?”

He hunched his shoulders and remembered Clark’s crooked smile, Clark’s hand on his arm, and that cold, dark night when he found Clark struggling under Killer Croc while the monster did _that_ to him… and then Clark’s broken plea: _Bruce please, I need you_. He bit his lip, punishingly hard, and drew blood. “Now? Now, I do the right thing.”

“You’ll see him, then?”

“No, there’s no need,” he said, with practiced blandless, and waited for an angry word, a smash of crockery. Instead, there was only silence, the sound of defeat.

 

X

 

“So, doc says no lung scarring,” said Clark. “Guess I can still take up smoking.”

“If you want to be grounded ‘til fifty,” said Mom.

He worked up a chuckle but his heart wasn’t in it. His skin felt raw and prickly, his body aching but not as much as his mind. Bruce was a sore spot in his thoughts, like a bad tooth he kept forgetting until he poked it, releasing a sharp wave of pain. He wanted the IV out of his arm, he wanted to go home, he uncharitably wanted Mom to go back to Kansas, but then he was afraid of being alone.

On the TV, a woman with damaged blond hair was yelling something about paternity, her tattooed boyfriend cringing away from her, the studio audience egging her on.

“I miss Dad,” he said, giving voice to a sudden thought.

Mom opened her eyes – he suspected she’d been praying – and her face scrunched for a moment, eyes going dangerously wet, then cleared. “Oh sweetheart, I miss him too.” She smiled at him from where she was curled up in the easy chair. Her shirt was rumpled, with a coffee stain on her cuff the size of a dime. There was an empty egg sandwich wrapper and several fruit peels on the end table. A fuzzy red lump of knitting rested on her lap. “I miss him all the time. But I’ve got you, don’t I? I look at you and see so much of him in you.”

It was meant to be comforting but it sent him down an uncomfortable train of thoughts. No, Dad wanted him to go to school, Dad wanted him to stay in Kansas, Dad wanted him to take the safe option. If only he’d listened to Dad, if only, if only…

On TV, the host smiled into his microphone as the woman leapt up for an open-handed smack, loose skin on her arm flapping like webbing, spit flecking her bubblegum pink lips, eyes scrunched in fury, making her wrinkles even more pronounced.

“Mom, can we change the channel?” Clark sighed.

“Why? This is quality entertainment.”

The tattooed man dodged the first blow but caught the second one on the side of his neck. The audience roared.

“Where’s the remote?”

She made a helpless gesture. “I don’t know where it is.”

A short shuffle revealed the remote wedged between two couch cushions.

It only took two channel changes to find what she didn’t want him to see: Bruce on TV, immaculately dressed, mouth open in that smooth, patrician laugh while being interviewed by a beautiful woman.

 _Well that’s exciting news, Bruce – may I call you Bruce, thanks – I mean… wow! You bought the Moscow City Ballet, and now you’re running away to Russia. Russia! With the prima ballerina, no less!_ Her exclamations were like pretty little gunshots, painfully hitting home with cute popping sounds.

 _Well, we might make a stop in the Maldives first before we hit that Russian winter. Some sailing, some lobsters... official ballet business, of course._ He sounded effortless, light.

 _So, are the rumors true then?_ She leaned close, mouth teasing. _You and her?_

 _Well_ , Bruce drawled, _Natasha is a very talented, very beautiful dancer, and I uh…_ appreciate _her very much. That’s all I have to say about that!_ He laughed again, and smoothed an invisible crease in his silky, cream-colored pants. It was a new suit, or at least one Clark hadn’t seen before, and it seemed too light for a Gotham winter, never mind a Russian winter. Bruce must have purchased an entire new wardrobe. Official ballet business, indeed.

 _But clear this up for me, Bruce. Rumor_ also _has it that you’ve been in a serious relationship with Clark Kent._ A picture of Clark in a flannel shirt and wool scarf briefly flashed on the screen. _I’m guessing that didn’t work out?_

Bruce shrugged an uncaring shoulder. _It happens. Some things just aren’t meant to be._

_Now I know this is probably a delicate topic… Does your breakup have anything to do with the recent kidnapping? I believe he was…_

Bruce was shaking his head before she even finished her sentence. _No, no. It has nothing to do with that_. His face twisted, looking extremely vulnerable and sad for one second, and then it was gone like a flicker of phantom pain. _Like I said, it just wasn’t meant to be. He’s… not what I signed up for in the long term, that’s all. Russian ballerina on the other hand…_

Something sour was curdling in his stomach, rising up the back of his throat, and Clark swallowed hard. He was aware of Mom making quietly distressed noises, but he barely heard her. He barely even heard the television, as the clip ended and MNN’s regular daytime reporter came back onscreen.

 _… CEO of Wayne Industries, not only having purchased the Moscow City Ballet without consulting the Board of Directors, but also planning an_ indefinite _stay abroad. Cliff, can you comment on how this will effect stock prices…_

It wasn’t even current. He was watching a news spot about another news spot that took place yesterday

Clark’s mouth had fallen open, cartoonish. He closed it with a deliberate click.

 _He’s… not what I signed up for in the long term, that’s all._ Words thrown out like birdseed, scattered carelessly.

Wayne Manor. He could still smell the smoke of the dying fire and the cold, sweet air from the rain outside, feel the puff of Bruce’s breath as he whispered, _Would you make a home with me?_

Mom was at his bedside, birdlike in her fluttering, making soft, sympathetic noises. Not like a mother hen, but something more tragic, like a swan. _My Baby Boy, my poor Baby Boy…_

 “It’s ok to cry,” she said, running fingers ever so lightly down his arm, like she was afraid to touch him. “It’s ok to be angry.”

Not in the mood to be comforted or pretend to be comforted, he slumped onto his side away from her and closed his eyes. He neither wanted to cry or be angry. He wondered if this is how heartbreak was supposed to feel: numb.

X

The GCPD holiday party was premature and forcefully neutral. No nativity figurines, no menorahs, not even poinsettias. A sunglasses-wearing, butt-jiggling, battery-operated Santa figurine blasted obnoxious music on a loop. Drugstore Christmas lights adorned the windows like stunned bugs on a windshield, along with giant plastic snowflakes that shed glitter throughout the day.

The good liquor had started out scant and was long gone by the time Gordon emerged from his office, head still buzzing from the latest department outrage. What drinks were left were syrupy sweet and smelled of cheap fruit flavoring. “How the hell does someone misplace twenty hours of video footage…” he was grumbling, before being pulled into a holiday picture, then plied with a red plastic cup of booze.

They were supposed to be partying in shifts, but those supposed to be working were definitely mingling with the merrymakers, hiding in plain sight with paperwork in hand, under the guise of just stopping for a chat.

Leftovers from the catered lunch were sitting damp on a foldout table and filled the breakroom with the musty-sweet smell of sandwich meat. It was hot and buzzy in the office, so the cold winter air was almost a relief when Gordon made his way to the roof.

He hadn’t thrown the Bat signal, but he almost knew, like the tingling of a sixth sense, that Batman was already there. 

“S’that you?” he called out into the dark, as if he needed confirmation. The dark shape hunched gargoyle-like at the edge of the parapet uncurled and stood, boots falling soundlessly to the roof deck.

It took him a moment to realize: he hadn’t called for Batman and Batman hadn’t called him. This wasn’t a planned meeting. He was catching Batman in the act, so to speak.

“It was you, wasn’t it?” said Gordon. The wind whipped his coat around his legs and he shivered, shoved his hands in his pockets. “The evidence? The video footage from the Kent kidnapping?”

The footage they’d recovered from Joker’s hideout had been a gory parade of torture, taunts, and humiliation. Serge Marko, Alex Chapel, Lizzie Stride… and Clark Kent. He’d watched it with jaded determination, his throat feeling thick like he’d actually gone and swallowed the blood and tissue he was seeing onscreen, while his fingers twitched to hold a cigarette. And then he’d found twenty full hours of it, just the ones showcasing Kent, missing.

“You could’ve just asked for it,” he said, then trailed off before he finished, his voice cracking at the end, _ehhh_. Batman was a forensics expert and a highly competent computer hacker. If he needed something, he got it. But this wasn’t about getting the footage. It was about _taking_ it. _Keeping_ it from the GCPD and the ever-nosy press, and every prying eye that would look at Kent being sexually tortured.

“That’s police property,” he snapped. “You can’t just…”

“You don’t need it,” said Batman, in the kind of voice you _felt,_ deep in your stomach, rather than heard.

The worst of it was that it made sense. He was protecting Kent’s honor. The dead were dead, but Kent was still alive. Unlike the others, he didn’t have the benefit of having the horror cut short. He had to live, knowing that every moment of his ordeal would be dissected and catalogued and digitized.

“Now just wait a minute, _wait_ …”

He headed towards Batman, hand out, but the Bat lighted on the parapet like a jungle cat and was gone into the night.

Gordon sighed, rubbed his face. Headed back into the office party, already making up a cover story.

 

X

“I need a drink,” groused Clark’s driver. She was lying limp on her hospital bed, Clark perched next to her on a folding chair, trailing his IV pole. Her face was grayish white, but her eyes were fiercely angry.

“How ‘bout a lollipop?” Clark offered cheerfully.

“Go to hell.”

“No thanks. It’s cherry.”

“Dip it in some rubbing alcohol and we’ll talk.”

She snatched it out of his hand anyway, and ripped the cellophane viciously with her teeth. It turned her tongue red almost immediately.

The TV was turned to an innocuous infomercial, some ridiculous kitchen gadget that looked so amazing onscreen that you forgot how ridiculous it was.

“Gotta get me one of those,” she grunted around the candy.

They watched in silence for a while, his veins stinging from the drip of the IV. His arms had been pricked and re-pricked so many times that they’d put a line in the back of his hand. It made his fingers feel fat and sluggish.

“I’m sorry,” he said finally, his voice breaking slightly despite his best efforts. He had to force himself to look at her. “I’m so sorry.”

“For what?” she said nonchalantly.

“I… for everything,” he said. “You got caught up in my mess. If it wasn’t for me…”

“Shut up, Kent.” She crunched candy loudly, like she was breaking a small animal’s bones. “It wasn’t your fault. Don’t apologize.”

“But…”

“And that’s all I want to hear about that, y’got it?” She gave him a long, hard look that radiated defiance and sympathy and sadness all at once.

“Y-yeah. Ok.”

“Good.” She licked her lips, smearing red stickiness into cracked skin. Gestured vaguely at the TV. “You hear from your boyfriend?”

He felt his stomach dip for a second. “No.” Then peevishly, “Did you?”

She looked at him, chewing on the lollipop stick. “I hear he’s out fucking with some ballerina. So fuck him, yeah?”

As if that solved everything.

“Chin up, Smallville,” she said forcefully.

He realized he was exhaling loudly, a proto-sob building in his chest. He clenched his jaw.

“Y’got _me_ , doncha?” she said, and grinned widely at him with stained teeth.

“Yeah. Thanks.” He smiled back, a stage smile, and they both turned back to the infomercial like actors receiving a cue.

He watched with her until she fell asleep, then walked slowly, gingerly, like he was tender and sore all over, to the elevator that took him up to his own luxury suite. He mindlessly ate his lunch of artichoke salad and pasta.

Lois came over later with a pair of barber’s scissors and a plastic smock, announced cheerfully that she would trim his hair. They’d buzzed off part of his curls for easier access to a head wound, leaving him lopsided.

The thought of someone standing behind him with scissors made him tight with discomfort, but he allowed her to tie the smock around him, then start snipping, the fleshy cutting sound setting his teeth on edge.

“C’mon Lois, I’m not going down the runway,” he said snappishly, when she fussed too long. She didn’t look offended, just wiped him down with a flourish and said, “There. Gorgeous.”

 _Gorgeous_. The word rubbed him the wrong way, somehow. What did it matter what he looked like anymore? He couldn’t think of a single reason why. He sat silently, hands folded, while she cleaned up, looking down at the floor and not wanting to do much else.

“Hey,” she said softly, deliberately re-wrapping the smock. “Remember that time you went after the crooked pharmacist?”

He nodded. “The vitamin factory.”

“Remember what you did? Almost gave Perry a conniption.”

His head bobbed again, obediently. “They wouldn’t let me into the factory so I snuck around back and climbed the fire escape. Got a couple of good shots, a couple of death threats, and a good story.”

She laughed, shaking her head. “And remember that gang stand-off at the pier? You got shot.”

“It was just a graze.”

“I know, I was there too, taking cover like a sane person. Next thing I know, the guy in the red bandana popped one off and it hit your arm. You didn’t even drop your notes, just stared right back at the guy and said, ‘That’s nice, can I quote you on that?’”

“It wasn’t my best line…” Clark said sheepishly.

“No,” she agreed. “But you know what all that tells me about you?”

“That I’ll give Perry a heart attack before he hits 60?”

“It tells me, Smallville, that when you set your eyes on something, you don’t let anything stop you.” She came to sit next to him, gently took his bandaged hand. “I’ve seen you do crazy things when you think the truth is on the line. You don’t let _anything_ stop you. So why not use that stubbornness for something selfish? Something you want?”

His throat had gone painfully dry and he swallowed around it. “What… what do you think I should do?”

She shrugged as if it was obvious. “He’s still in Gotham, isn’t he? Not for long though. Chase him down. Then shake him down. Do what you do when you’re on the job and you’re chasing down the truth. Demand answers.”

X

 

It was late when Bruce finally made it back to his Penthouse suite, falling against the door like an exhausted drunk. He had Natasha’s perfume on his neck and hands, another girl’s juicy red lipstick on his chin, where her mouth fell, clunky and sloppy and off-center. He’d deposited the prima ballerina into her hotel bed, sprawling and filled up on good drink. Perhaps she’d dream that they’d had sex and wake up believing it, and he’d do nothing to deny it, just throw her a wink and a vaguely dirty suggestion.

It so was damned depressing he wanted to cry.

He pulled his collar apart with a sigh and wandered into the bedroom working at his cufflinks. He stopped short when he saw someone standing by the window, looking out at the city skyline.

_Clark_

“What are you doing here?” he demanded sharply.

Clark turned slowly, lips going up in a tired smile. “Hi.”

“How did you get in?”

“I have my ways.”

“Alfred?”

“Yeah. Alfred.” Clark huffed a laugh. His voice was painfully scratchy. His left arm was in a sling and each fingernail was bandaged. He was pasty and dry-lipped, his eyes bruised with dark circles. His hair was unevenly cut and there were sutures on his scalp. He was the most beautiful thing Bruce had ever seen.

“I, um, wanted to thank you for saving my life.”

“You’re welcome,” Bruce replied curtly.

Clark sighed, looked down like he was bracing himself, then took a step closer. “I’ll get to the point. I know about you now. I probably should have figured it out sooner. But I know everything now.”

Bruce swallowed hard and found that he couldn’t speak. He wanted desperately to plant his hands on Clark’s chest and push him away, but couldn’t make himself move an inch.

“I still love you,” said Clark. Then quietly, not making eye contact, “Do you still love me?”

Bruce’s jaw ached from clenching. He was afraid if he opened his mouth, nothing would come out except a sob of longing.

Clark’s voice shook as he spoke, “I know you saw what happened to me. I know he took… videos. You saw… the things they did. If you think any of it makes me too broken to love, then…” He set something on the nearby stationary table with a click. Bruce’s ring, with two stones knocked out and caked in dried blood and bile. “Then just tell me, ok? Tell me, so I’ll know it’s true.”

It was like some horrible, dark nightmare where he watched himself killing someone he loved, but was unable to stop. Molasses limbs and echoey screams, and the unstoppable, killing intent. Eyes darting behind closed eyelids. Desperate to wake but unable.

Bruce took two deliberate steps until he was an inch away from Clark, his face carefully expressionless. “You need to leave, before I call security.”

He watched the shock of disbelief and hurt turn to sadness and despair. Then, as if the pain couldn’t be contained internally anymore, Clark started to cough. And cough. His shoulders shook in a twitchy parody of laughter and he clapped a hand to his mouth, but too late. Blood spewed out and splattered the pristine whiteness of Bruce’s dress shirt.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry this was such a long time coming! For those still sticking with it, thanks so much for your patience. As always, feedback is greatly appreciated! So the "Steve" that comes to visit Clark can either be Steve Trevor or Steve Rogers (Or Steve Urkel, if that's your thing.) I just wanted to give Clark some male friends, poor guy!


	14. Live

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clark and Bruce have a chat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No copyright infringement intended, no profits made!

_No, not the laughing… don’t let me be laughing, please…_

Clark’s shoulders were shaking and his throat was convulsing, but he wasn’t laughing. He was only coughing. But his chest hurt the same way, his stomach muscles aching, his blood running hot and cold at the same time, just like he was back _there_ and they’d forced him to laugh and laugh and laugh…

“Easy, easy. Clark…”

He thought he was falling slowly, dream-like, but then realized that Bruce was lowering him into a chair. He thumped against the upholstery, hacking and wheezing, doubling up with a fresh round of convulsions. There were sparks at the corners of his eyes and his hand came away bloody from his face.

_What a mess…_

A plastic crackle, a liquid hiss of something like seltzer, and Bruce was kneeling before him, nudging his hands out of the way to press a cool glass to his lips.

He recoiled on instinct, flashing to bony white fingers digging into his jaw, jacking his mouth open, force-feeding him boiling soup.

“It’ll help,” Bruce was saying urgently. The hand on his jaw was feather-light, not hurting, not forcing. “Please. Trust me.”

Easier said than done.

Clark accepted it with some difficulty, the glass clicking against his teeth. It burned on its way down, but the convulsions stopped almost instantly. The pressure in his chest eased, then mellowed out. He sighed in relief. Then winced at the red splat of gore on his hand.

Bruce conjured a wet wipe from somewhere and was wiping his hands and face, saying something that buzzed in and out of Clark’s thudding ears. 

“… should help… it’s a compound… neutralizes Joker gas…”

“Please don’t say his name,” Clark rasped, and felt the ministrations come to a halt.

There was a thump against his legs. Bruce had sat down abruptly and was looking wretchedly at the carpet.

“I… Clark, I…” He made an utterly devastated sound and bit the back of his wrist. It took Clark a stunned moment to realize that Bruce was crying.

Clark had seen him emotional before, but not like this. Bruce took on emotions like a boxer taking a punch, jaw clenched and furious, eyes narrowed in determination. He didn’t cry, at least not outright. His eyes watered and dried with perfect control, mechanically, like a pressure valve letting out water: open for a few precious seconds, _4… 3… 2…_ and shut. It reminded Clark of Dad, in a strange way.

Bruce sobbed inelegantly at Clark’s feet, heaving, strangled sobs. He looked wounded and angry, like a gored predator. He was still holding the wet wipe in his hands, crumpled and sticky red.  

“I’m sorry,” he said harshly, pained, the words tearing at his throat on their way out. “I’m so… sorry.”

“Bruce…” Clark reached weakly for him, wanting to touch, and Bruce grabbed his hand like a lifeline, face knocking into his knee, weeping into the creases of his trousers.

“You can’t be here. Oh God… you can’t be here with me. You can’t… you need to leave.”

“That’s not what you really want,” whispered Clark. It hurt to do more than whisper. “Is it?”

“No.” A dejected confession, that sounded like it was dragged out of him. He took three gulps of air, then swallowed hard. Brushed his disheveled hair back into an approximation of its classically parted coiffure. It hurt to see him re-shelling himself, pushing the real Bruce back beneath a mask.

“I know you,” said Clark. “Even before I knew about Batman, I _knew_ you. I could tell… you didn’t really know how to be happy.” He gave Bruce’s hand a squeeze. “It’s like… every decision you make is so something bad doesn’t happen. Everything you did was defensive. To _prevent_. Even the little things.”

He pictured Bruce, broad shoulders filling up his little Metropolis kitchen, steadily drinking coffee like it was a task, while Clark sat opposite him and took his time: warming his hands on the mug and inhaling the bittersweet fumes. Bruce didn’t drink coffee to be awake. He drank it so he wouldn’t be tired – a small but crucial difference that Clark discovered one rainy morning while reach for the half-and-half, and then couldn’t ignore. Bruce wasn’t looking forward to a new day. He was trying to prevent a bad day. He didn’t pull long hours because he wanted to succeed, he worked because he didn’t want to fail. And Batman didn’t fight to make Gotham safe. He fought to keep it from harm, beating back the darkness with both fists clenched. Each day was a little plastic milliliter cup of medicine: _let me last until nighttime, let me not be sick today._

“Don’t do that with me,” Clark pleaded. “You said you’d dream with me, remember?”

“But I failed you. I failed you.”

Clark shook his head woozily. “You didn’t. I went somewhere I shouldn’t have… and I paid the price. Please don’t fail me now. You promised you’d never push me away again. Right?”

Bruce huffed out something that could have been a laugh but was more likely one last sob. “I did.”

Clark smiled at the admission and let the haze overtake him for a moment, his head lolling on the amazingly comfortable sofa cushion. He floated for a moment in the first measure of relief he’d had in days.

What seemed like minutes passed, then gentle hands cupped his face, removed his glasses. He let himself be lifted to his feet. He saw spots when he opened his eyes, so he let himself be guided blind to the bed. The mattress was soft under him, almost too soft, and he sunk into it ragdoll-like. He barely felt his shoes being removed, his sling taken off, his arm positioned carefully.

He lay exhausted, almost sleeping but still waiting, until he felt Bruce lie down next to him with a sigh.

“I love you,” Bruce whispered against his ear.

“I know,” he replied smiling, eyes shut. “I’ve always known.”

He drifted into a doze, then into a deeper, dreamless sleep. Throughout the night, he could feel Bruce next to him, a steady weight against his shoulder. He could feel Bruce watching him, sleepless, occasionally touching his hair, his face, with butterfly-light fingertips.

It was the gray fuzzy hours of the morning when he woke, without really waking. Bruce was still there, a comforting presence.

“Clark,” said Bruce, his voice sounding watery, dreamlike. “I have to go somewhere. I won’t be back for a while.”

“No,” he said, or maybe he dreamt he said it. “Stay with me.”

Bruce touched his chest and the warmth of it seemed to go right through him, deep into his heart. “I’ll be back. I promise.” Lips on his forehead, then his lips. “Do you trust me?”

_Yes_ , he whispered, and the word floated away from him, dissolving into the air.

“Promise me you’ll take care of yourself.”

_Yes…_

Hours later, he was woken up by the clink of silverware. He must have lost a few more minutes between hearing the noise and actually waking up, because when he opened his eyes, there wasn’t a trace of anyone else in the room. Bruce’s side of the bed was heartbreakingly pristine. There was an enormous offering of eggs and toast and rosy salmon with capers laid out on the table, with only one place setting and one coffee cup.

The ring he’d set down on the stationary desk last night was gone. Bruce was gone.

He hugged himself, wandering around the ghostly suite like a lost child, face in a tight mask, then stopped short when he saw a Christmas package by the private elevator. The wrapping was a muted gold. The ribbon (always a silky ribbon, never a stick-on bow) was a thick royal blue. The card said “Merry Christmas,” and was signed _B .Wayne_ in extravagant whirls. 

He managed a one-handed, messy disassembling, and found a shining new BB-8 droid staring up at him, its monocular eye planted firmly in the middle of its chubby head. Voice activated. Will follow you around. Cute.

He huffed an exasperated laugh. “Star _Trek_ , Bruce,” he said to an empty room. “Not Star Wars.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short chapter to follow up on the last one! More to come soon. Thanks so much to everyone for reading! As always, feedback is highly appreciated!


	15. Reunion

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No copyright infringement intended!

It was his first day back at the office, and the elevator doors dinged open to his nervous foot-scuffing before he was fully ready, releasing the familiar workday smells to him like an exhalation: disinfectant, coffee, the musty smell of overworked bodies in day-old shirts. Caught off-guard, he took a half step forward and tripped awkwardly out onto the speckled carpeting.  

The familiar sight of the office at 8:30am was painfully sweet. Theresa from operations was stabbing bony fingers at the copier, muttering to herself. Paul the perpetually pit-stained editor was slurping coffee and reading the sports section of a competing newspaper, loafered feet propped up on a stack of folders. Two interns from Design were snapping at each other over spacing and picture size. 

He’d thought that his first day back at the _Planet_ would literally feel like his first day back on the planet, a weird homecoming after a trip to outer space. But it wasn’t that bad. There was no excessive gawking as he walked the gauntlet to his own cubicle, only politely bobbed heads and _Hi Kent_ ’s and _Good to have you back_ ’s. Smiles all around.

He was guided to a breakfast spread in the break room at a quarter to nine, and it was all his favorite things: the _good_ bagels from the deli two blocks down, still hot and crusty, egg sandwiches and glazed donuts, buttered muffins, and expensive coffee. An unspoken celebration. A kind gesture with none of the fuss.

Lois and Jenny each gave him hugs and Lombard gave him a hearty slap on the back, purposely knocking him off-balance. Perry came out of his office and shook his hand, gave him a good-natured “Good to see you, Smallville, now get to work.”

He was smiling when he got to his desk, and it was all great until he made the mistake of answering the first call that came through and already message-saturated phone.

“This is Kent.”

“Clark Kent, this is Mel from the Metro Tribune,” came a prodding, unfriendly voice. “Are you aware that by refusing to speak to the press about your kidnapping experience, that you’re denying closure to the other victims’ families?”

“I…”

“Do you realize you’re encouraging silence for rape and abuse victims across the country?”

“I… I don’t…”

The questions were provocative, obviously meant to goad a response, any kind of response from him. But knowing it for what it was, a desperate ploy from an internet blogger (it had to be a blogger, Mel’s voice had the annoying brashness of online anonymity), didn’t prevent the cold sweat from breaking out across the back of his neck, or the sour clenching in his stomach.

“Post-mortem evidence shows that Elizabeth Stride was raped and sodomized a total of 20 times while held captive. How many times were you raped?”

He barely felt the receiver slip from his hand to clatter noisily on the edge of the desk, then flop off to dangle limply from the cord, clanging against the metal filing cabinet.

 _How many times_? Like it was a damned race, a pissing contest between victims. He knew precisely how many times. He’d counted. He’d tallied. He’d ticked them off his fingers while screaming himself raw… _His lips were always cold and slimy, like a fish, and he always nibbled, nibbled so hard he drew blood._

“Clark! Come back sweetie, it’s me. I’m here.”

Lois. It was Lois who was rubbing his back while he hyperventilated. He took in his surroundings in shaky flashes, an upended pen cup, the wheels of his desk chair rolling as he crouched against its base, Lois’s Coach heels slanted against the carpet as she leaned against him, the warmth of her. Lombard yelling angrily into the receiver, then slamming it down so hard the skin on his knuckles actually split. Concerned whispers and faces peeking over cubicles, Perry’s oncoming rumble: _Nothing to see, people, get back to work._

Clark panted and blinked hard. He was here. He was back. He wasn’t… _there_.

“Kent?” A solid male voice. Perry. The floor vibrated as he crouched down to look concernedly at Clark’s face.

“I’m ok,” Clark managed. “I… I’m _fine_.”

Perry was squatted down on one knee, and there was a stray shred of paper clinging to his pants. He was giving Clark a pained look as Lois gently, tactfully explained what happened. “Listen, Kent,” he said. “Maybe take a day, huh? It’s ok if you do.”

He shook his head, a desperate wag. “No, Perry. I can do this.”

“Kent…”

“Please. I need this.” He bit down hard to force his chin to stop wobbling, wrung his hands savagely to stop them shaking. Managed a good, sustained, man-to-man stare. “I’m fine.”

Seconds ticked by, Lois rubbing a cool circle on his back, while Perry studied the ceiling and the carpet in turn, then said, “Ok. But take a rest. Use the meditation room.”

He sighed. “I don’t need…”

“Take a break in the meditation room or take a day.”

“Fine.”

 

X

 

The “meditation room” was a Febrezed, hollowed out storage closet that came about after three interns had three nervous breakdown in a row one summer. It was meant to be a refuge, somewhere to hide from the deadlines and scathing criticisms and typical office nonsense. And now, apparently, internet bloggers.

Clark curled up miserably in the lawn chair someone managed to cram into the room. There was a giant beach poster covering almost the entirety of one wall, all swaying greens and sparkling blues. The tan-lined square on the wall where a shelf used to be was hidden by one of Clark’s own cat posters, donated from his apartment.

He sighed and looked at his watch, wondering how long he’d have to wait it out until he can sneak back to his desk. He didn’t need to meditate. Rest was the last thing he needed. He needed, _desperately_ wanted, to work, the same way he needed exercise after a week in bed. Idleness meant time to think, meant time to remember.

He picked at a barely healed scab on his wrist – _the handcuffs had ripped deeply into his wrists and his skin had come off like a plastic water bottle ring_.

It had been a month. A whole month since he’d left Gotham and its nightmares, and limped back to Metropolis like a beaten dog that’d learned its lesson. A whole month since Bruce left. Occasionally, he’d see snippets of Bruce in the news, little hauntings here and there: a blurry picture of a man lounging in a yacht, a shot from behind as he walked down a decadent stretch of beach, a shadowy photo of him dining outdoors in a beautiful suit with beautiful women. Nothing else, no message, no calls.

 _Trust me_ , Bruce had said. Clark trusted him. But… it had been a month.

A knock on the door startled him out of his thoughts.

“I’m done,” he called out. “I’m leaving.”

The door opened halfway before it bumped into the leg of the lawn chair, and Jimmy Olsen stuck his head in. “Hey Clark,” he greeted cheerfully.

“Jimmy. Hi.”

“Mind I join ya?”

“Um, no. Come on in?”

Jimmy shuffled sideways into the room and perched on the edge of the lawn chair. Clark had to scoot backwards and hug his knees. He nudged the door closed with an elbow.

“Here, I brought you something.” Jimmy pulled a stuffed penguin the size of a grapefruit out of his coat pocket and gently pecked Clark’s scabby wrist with it.

Clark smiled bemusedly for a second before realizing that Jimmy couldn’t even stomach seeing a fat man in a tuxedo without turning green.

“Jimmy… you…?”

Jimmy made a bashful, dismissive gesture. “Yeah.” He rubbed the back of his pinkening neck, not quite looking Clark in the eye. “Look, I can’t say I know what you’re going through. Not by a long shot. But hey… it gets better, you know? It’ll pass.”

It was so baffling and so simple at the same time, and it made Clark smile. He felt something warm wash over him like relief, like that sweet fuzzy ache after a good cry.

“Thanks, Jimmy,” he said, and gave the penguin a squeeze. It felt fat and plush in his hands and squeaked like a hungry kitten.

“Oh, and this helps too,” said Jimmy, and produced a joint in a Ziploc bag.

“Jeez Louise, Jimmy! Put that away!”

“Chill, this stuff’s legal in a lot of places now.”

“This ain’t one of them!”

 

X

 

He worked a long day and was stiff-limbed and bleary-eyed by the time he got home. His cats mewed resentfully at him when he kicked off his shoes and flopped down on the couch, unmoving. They nosed at his dangling hand, their cries growing more and more urgent until he heaved himself up with an exaggerated groan and refilled their food bowls. One of them, Jim probably, had bitten off poor BB8’s head again. He found it under the coffee table and replaced it, watched it get mauled again, then replaced it twice more before giving up, sighing with the resignation of an exhausted parent. 

There were two messages on his phone, one from his therapist and one from Lois telling him to not ignore his therapist. He listened to them, tight-lipped and grouchy, as he cobbled together dinner. He was tempted to ignore them both, but he’d probably give in by noon tomorrow and call back.

Mom had left his fridge and freezer packed with food before flying back to Kansas. He dragged out a giant Tupperware vat full of stew and recalled his latest conversation with her as he watched the gelatinous mass of veggies and beef wobble and splat into the pot. He stirred it with one hand and used the other to keep Jim from dipping a paw into the soup.

 _You should come home,_ Mom had said, with the honest conviction that _home_ was and always will be Smallville. _This city… coming here has been nothing but trouble. And it’s brought me nothing but heartache. Come home with me. I’ll take care of you. We’ll take care of each other._

_You know I can’t do that, Mom. I’m sorry._

_Why? Oh, don’t tell me. You’re still waiting for_ him _to come back to you?_

_It’s not just that! I’ve got my life here. I can’t leave it all behind. Not even after what happened. And he’ll be back. I know it._

_Really?_

He slapped the lid down on the pot, immediately feeling guilty because it startled the cats, then pushed it off the burner. He couldn’t stomach the taste and smell of home. Instead he chopped up a warm salad from the vegetables on the counter that he’d forgotten to put in the fridge and ate it huddled on the windowsill, pressed against bare brick, the cats winding around his ankles.

Then, lighting-fast in his masochism, like sticking a hand in the fire, he opened his laptop and checked the newsfeed.

Ever since his return, the _Planet_ had released a brief, tasteful article about the general happenings of the kidnappings, but other news outlets hadn’t been so considerate. Some stories were downright pornographic, splashing headlines across the page like bloody streaks, advertising sex and murder and titillating torture. Some were just mean-spirited.

There were two today. One was a candid picture of him taken about a week after his rescue. He was jogging and it looked like he was smiling too. He probably wasn’t. The spin: Clark Kent was a fake. He made it all up. Traumatized people don’t jog. Rape victims don’t smile. The fact that he wasn’t hiding behind triple-locked doors, shutters drawn like a good little rape victim, obviously meant that it was all a sham. He was an attention whore, a fame-hog, whose greedy hands stretched out for condolence donations.

And then there was the one taken in the middle of the street. It was a bad picture: he was holding a wooden crate and he looked like a hobo making off with a box of groceries. He was genuinely smiling in that one, laughing in fact. His face had the deranged look of someone caught mid-guffaw, his hair was wild, caught in the wind, and he was dressed in his rattiest sweats. The headline read: Clark Kent Disturbed and Erratic After kidnapping. Does joker have a new protégé?

He was dressed down because he was hauling goods at the food pantry, and he was carrying a crate of yams. He was laughing because Sheila and Steve, a pair of college-aged siblings that volunteered with him on weekends, were clowning around just outside the shot, and it had felt so good to laugh, like learning to breathe again.

He sighed and rubbed his eyes, smacking the laptop lid shut like it was a disobedient pet. He would call his therapist in the morning. He couldn’t bring himself to do it now.

He undressed, put on the softest pair of pajamas he owned, then brushed his teeth and washed his face. He made sure the gas was off, then shooed the cats off to bed. He got under the covers, turned off the lights, and tried to drift off.

He lasted a whole fifteen minutes before getting up, turning the lights back on, and redressing with shaking hands. He lay back down on top of his covers and kept the lights on the entire night. He didn’t get much sleep.

 

X

_1 week later_

“Hey Smallville, huge gaudy high rise going up off the freeway.” Lois reached over his head and dropped a manila folder on his desk.

“Mazel tov,” he mumbled around the pen in his mouth, not looking up from the press release in his lap.

“C’mon, take this one off my hands.”

“I’m a little backed up, Lo.”

“Then pop some Ex-Lax and do this for me.”

“Gross.”

“I’ll buy you lunch,” she wheedled, her voice going high pitched. “Please?” She perched on the back of his chair, rocking him until he looked up at her. Her hair was in a fishtail braid and he was tempted to tug the end of it, like he would have if they were still going out. _You’re such a grade-schooler_ , she’d say, and then swat him.  

“Ok, fine,” he sighed, flipping open the folder. “Who’s the contractor?”

“BC Inc.”

“And who’s paying for it?”

“Plaza Management.”

 _Plaza_. The name had a familiar ring to it that he couldn’t place, a muffled ping at the back of his brain. Where had he heard it before?

“Appointment’s at 10. If you leave now you’ll be on time.”

He checked his watch and groaned, then started scrambling for his things.

“Keep an open mind and stick to the facts!” she sang after him, as he reached the elevators and tapped furiously on the buttons.

X

The building was still a carcass, a 300-foot gray concrete skeleton bandaged in orange tarps. Glass and drywall hadn’t gone up yet. The roof was still a gaping hole. 

There would eventually be lush green hedges planted around the perimeter, but there was only gravel now. It crunched disappointingly under Clark’s feet as he locked up his bike and walked around the site, snapping pictures. He found a bird’s wing half-buried under the rocks, a small sad triangle of matted gray feathers with a pink nub at the end where it used to be attached to a living body. He felt suddenly, inexplicably sad for the owner of the wing, that poor little bird.

The poster on the plywood perimeter said _Plaza Management_. It seemed more familiar this time around and he thought he might have read it somewhere rather than hearing it.

“You must be Clark,” said an approaching young man, who neither looked nor dressed like a construction worker, but nevertheless opened up the gate for him and led him inside. “I’m Dick.”

Clark shook a callused hand and noted that there weren’t any other workers around, and that there wasn’t any of the usual noises on a site: machinery and voices and the ear-stabbing grinding. Maybe it was lunchtime.

“I’m looking for the, uh…” he peered at his contact info. Was it _foreman_ , or _superintendent_ , or _facilities manager_? How annoying of Lois to spring this on him.

“The big boss, right? This way.”

They passed through a cavernous room that could possibly be a foyer. It was dark and dank, the dull explosion-proof bulbs suspended from the ceiling like caught fireflies, but the smell was the familiar chalky and smoky tang of a building going up, not brine and blood and rot. _You’re safe here_ , he reminded himself.

“Take this one,” said Dick, gesturing to an open elevator that was still lined with cardboard and spongy mats. He made an upwards gesture with his thumb. “All the way to the top.”

“Um,” said Clark, stepping in and peering outwards into the gloom. “Shouldn’t you have a hard hat?”

“Me? Naw.”

“Well… shouldn’t _I_ have a hard hat?”

“Probably,” said Dick, shrugging.

The doors clanked closed and Clark’s stomach bottomed out as it began to rise. When the doors opened on the penthouse level, he had to shield his eyes from the sudden brightness and tighten his coat from the gust of wind that blew in through the open roof. The sky was cottony-gray, and it felt like a drizzle might fall.

He shivered and stepped out into the half-finished penthouse, calling out a tentative “Hello?”

He stepped around a pile of neatly stacked steel beams, meandered through what could be a future den – he imagined a pool table and squashy leather chairs – and then felt his hackles rise even before he finished turning the corner.

The moment he saw a flash of dark cape fluttering in the wind was the moment he remembered where he’d seen _Plaza Management_.

 _Plaza_ was the real estate company, which was the subsidiary of WAYNE FINANCIAL, which he’d found out when snooping into his own apartment building’s new owners.

So the building he was standing on belonged to Bruce, and there was Batman perched at the very edge like a gothic statue.

He felt himself flush rapidly, a mixed bag of emotions rising to heat his face: hope, hurt, nervousness, anger, and that queasy lovey-dovey feeling he always got around Bruce, like he was still a virgin half-hoping and half-scared for that first kiss. He watched silently as Batman slowly rose from his gargoyle-like crouch, then turn towards him.

“It’s you,” said Clark, when nothing more eloquent came to mind.

Batman approached him in steady strides, stopping about arm’s length away. “I heard a reporter from the Daily Planet was looking for me,” he said, his lip quirking, slightly  shakily under the shadow of the cowl, and Clark realized that Batman – Bruce – was just as unsettled and nervous with longing as he was. “Had some questions for me. About me.”

 _Keep an open mind!_ he could still hear Lois say. He realized he was white-knuckling, gripping his pen, and forced himself to relax. Swallowed hard once or twice. “Y-yeah. You could say that.”

Well,” Bruce spread his hands, “here I am. Ask away.”  

Alright then.

He took out his notepad, the pages rustling traitorously in his shaking hands. Turned around and made a big deal of dusting off a pile of two-by-fours, stalling, before siting down. Opened up to the first blank page he stuck his thumb into. “So who are you, really?” he asked, in the practiced neutral tone he used on crooked businessmen and sleazy politicians.  

To his surprise, Batman sighed softly, and lowered his bulk to sit next to Clark, then after a moment’s hesitation, unlocked the cowl and pulled it free. “Bruce Wayne,” he said tiredly, looking down at the hollow mask in his hands.

“Is this… on the record?” Clark whispered. He barely dared to breathe.

Bruce looked at him carefully, his expression pained, trusting, and… relieved. “It’s whatever you want it to be.”

The only other time he’d seen Batman without the cowl was That Night, when everything had hurt and he thought he would die cold and alone, and Batman had seemed like another nightmare when he appeared. Now, in the daylight, Clark had time to study Bruce. He knew Bruce, knew his body and his habits. He knew Batman less well, having only met him a handful of times. But the man sitting before him, while strange to look at, was also achingly familiar. It was like staring at a photograph of his father when Jonathan Kent was still incredibly young, stiff and clean cut in his army uniform. Familiar yet strange. Known, yet unknown.

He cleared his throat and looked down at his pen, the idle nub dotting the page with blue ink, like a tear. “How did all this…” he made a vague gesture at the ensemble, cape and armor and cowl, “…all start?”

“I was eight years old when I watched my parents die.”

And he listened as Bruce’s story unraveled at last, the dark and the light, the heartbreak and the hope, the incredible strivings and the failures. It was an outpouring of confessions, a stream of words that were sometimes as jagged as Gotham itself, the words as rough and shadowy as the Wayne tombstones, as sharp switchblades and insane glinting smiles, as dark as bloodstained alleyways and dockside drug houses. Clark listened to it all, only gently prodding here and there with questions, _and why did you do that? What made you decide that? Why didn’t you stop then?_ He listened to the creation and rise of the Dark Knight, and Gotham’s worst criminals. He listened, while Bruce’s back bowed and head lowered, to Jason’s tragic story. He listened to it all, and knew just how much trust Bruce was placing into his hands.

By the time it was finished, his eyes were aching and so were his hands. Bruce’s voice had become light, easy, like he’d shrugged off an Atlas-sized burden and was finally able to breathe. “Is there anything else you want to know?” he asked, as if this was Clark’s last chance; he would never be able to be laid so bare again.

“Yeah,” whispered Clark, watching his pen drool a continuously larger teardrop of blue ink onto an otherwise blank page. “Where were you the last month?”

Bruce looked at him carefully before saying, “Sri Lanka.”

Clark’s breath caught in his throat and he had to blink rapidly to clear his vision. “W-what did you find?”

Bruce shook his head. “Nothing.”

His exhale was like a stifled sob. “Then it was all for nothing.”

“No,” said Bruce, his voice a quiet kind of fierce. “I won’t let it be for nothing.” Then, after a pause, “I’m sorry I left you alone. I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you.”

Clark shook his head wearily. He suddenly felt tired, so tired and weak, like his bones had gone hollow and his blood had been drained. It was an effort to cap his pen and snap his notebook shut, smearing ink between pages like a pressed flower. “So what now? For us, I mean?”

Bruce studied him, then smiled very gently. He thumbed one of the bat ears on the cowl, thoughtfully, before nudging it into Clark’s hands. “Here. It’s yours if you want.”

Clark was about to make a quip about how it wasn’t his size, when he realized what Bruce meant. “But… but what about Gotham?”

Bruce shrugged and rubbed the back of his neck in an endearingly boyish way. “Gotham will still be Gotham. And… well, I have a plan. Always do. That’s another reason why I was gone for so long. I was… planning. For retirement.”

“I see.” The cowl felt heavy in his hands. There were probably layers of armor behind the oil-black surface, engineered and reengineered to take as much as a gunshot at close range. He considered it for a moment, looking into those gaping eyeholes, before lifting it over Bruce’s head and carefully, with Bruce sitting stock-still and barely breathing, lowered it down over Bruce’s face, Bruce’s fingers guiding his to buckle the hidden locking mechanism. “If you ever do hang up your cape,” Clark whispered, his hand still on the side of Batman’s face, “don’t do it for me. Do it because you agree with me.”

Bruce snagged his hand when he moved to pull away, held it between gloved ones. “I’m yours too,” he said. “If you want.”

Clark nodded, smiling crookedly despite the fact that he was feeling stuffy with tears. “You already know that I do.”

And then he was being swept up by Bruce, strong arms hugging him tight, a relieved breath, almost a sob, exhaled against his cheek. He rested his head against Bruce’s armored shoulder and hugged back. Bruce reached into one of many pockets – Clark was reminded of Dad’s many-pocketed dungaree overalls – and produced a tiny gold ring of sparkling facets. His engagement ring.

Wordlessly, it was pressed into his hand. Upon close examination, Clark saw that the two knocked-out stones had been replaced, and the original inscription had been sanded away, replaced by a new one which simply read: _I lay my life down for you._

“Do you mean it?” he whispered.

“Every word.” And there was steel in that response, a low undercurrent of strength that was almost a growl. Then he asked again, an echo of that promise he made in Wayne Manor, “Would you make a home with me?”

Then Clark realized what they were standing on. A new building, constructed off the freeway exactly between Metropolis and Gotham, a landmark between their two cities. A home, if he wanted it.

“Yes,” he said.  

But he still blocked Bruce’s kiss with his fingers, pushed back far enough to look Bruce in the eyes, and said, “That stunt you pulled with the ballerina? Promise me you’ll never do something so hurtful again, or I’ll walk away now and never look back.”

Bruce’s eyes were hard and piercing when he said, “I swear it,” and then his mouth came down on Clark’s, so hot and urgent it was like drowning and burning up at the same time.

“Meet me ground level,” Bruce whispered against his lips, when they finally parted, panting and dazed. He withdrew and disappeared off the parapet, the twang of his zipline echoing in the wind.

“Ok,” Clark nearly whimpered, and dizzily made his way back to the elevators. He considered it a miracle that he didn’t trip right off the side of the building.

By the time he made it back onto the graveled entrance, Bruce was already there, leaning against the boarded gate, dressed in jeans, a baggy Gotham Knights sweatshirt, sunglasses, and a baseball cap pulled low.

“How do I look?” he asked.

“How did you even-?”

“Practice.”

“Fair enough. But you look like Bruce Wayne trying to sneak past reporters.”

Bruce considered that for awhile, then grinned and said, “You’re right, let’s switch.” He swept Clark’s glasses off and replaced them with the Saint Laurent shades, then crammed the baseball cap on top of Clarks curls. He propped Clark’s thick-rimmed glass over his own ears and gave a thoughtful, “huh.” He looked like an owl.

“Bruce, I’m not sure this is a good idea,” said Clark, then took two steps and promptly walked into a telephone pole.

“Can’t take you anywhere, can I?” Bruce teased gently, checking his face for injuries. “Here, hold my hand and let’s go.”

“Where are we even going?” said Clark, as Bruce tugged him along until they reached an intersection. He heard a car pull up and was guided into the cool leather backseat.

“City Hall please, Alfred,” said Bruce, and Clark’s eyes widened behind the tinted lenses as they took off, turning sharply onto the freeway.

“City Hall? You mean…?”

“Yeah,” Bruce mouthed directly into his ear. He could feel the shape of Bruce’s smile. “I don’t want to wait anymore. Do you?”

“No,” said Clark, and burst out laughing for some reason, giddy.

His eyes had adjusted some by the time they pulled up in front of the side entrance, but he let Bruce guide him inside. He was nearly melting into Bruce’s touch, head lolling on his shoulder, arms entwined. He had missed it so much.

An application process rewarded them with a marriage license fluttering in Bruce’s hand. “Alright, let’s get married.”

“Isn’t there like, a wait period?” Clark said dazedly, head spinning.

“Not if I’m Bruce Wayne,” Bruce said cheekily, like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

Lois and the “construction worker” called Dick met them in the main hall. Bruce said something out the side of his mouth to Dick, who replied with something like, “Yeah, all clear, I checked,” in a reassuring tone.

“You set me up with that appointment, didn’t you?” he accused Lois, peeking over the tops of his sunglasses. 

She shrugged. “Guilty.” Then touched his arm in concern. “Are you happy about this Clark?”

He smiled. It felt good, to smile again. Like stretching a long forgotten muscle. “Yeah. I am.” Then hugged her hard.

The wait wasn’t too long, whether by fortune or by Wayne influence. He sat huddled with Bruce in the waiting area and tried to look sultry and mysterious behind his sunglasses, while Bruce buried himself under a book. Lois and Dick stood in front of them, making an attempt at blocking them from view. Despite their efforts, he saw a few camera phones flash out of the corner of his eyes. Sooner that he’d expected, their names were called and he was led by Bruce into a room down the hall.

The ceremony was conducted by a skeletal, bespectacled clerk who sounded incredibly bored. He had no ring for Bruce. They didn’t have pre-written vows. No music or flowers or guests, besides Lois and Dick who were their witnesses. He got married to Bruce in a flannel snap-button shirt, and Lois took a photo of their kiss with her phone. But he was standing on clouds, his head filled with champagne bubbles and his smile a mile wide, and their kiss was as magical and melting as their first.

“Oh, they’ve definitely recognized you!” Dick warned as they exited. Flashes greeted them on their way out, with murmurs from the crowd. Clark couldn’t care less.

“Congrats!” he sang out, a drive-by blessing to a young-looking tattooed  couple, before he and Bruce ran out the entrance and down the City Hall steps, scattering pigeons and tourists. They turned the corner and leaned into each other, breathless and kissing, unable to keep off each other.

“Congratulations, now I have to go!” said Lois, giving them both quick hugs, then turned and aggressively waved down a taxi, the needle of her heel disappearing into the car before Clark was finished thanking her. A shoulder clasp and a knowing, “Good luck, you two,” from Dick, and he was gone too. Weekday workday in Gotham. Typical.

He and Bruce bought and shared a greasy, meaty food truck sandwich, huddling for warmth on a park bench, not daring to show their faces in a restaurant. Clark shook up a Sprite and let it spritz and bubble into the street, feeling stupid and excited and crazy-happy.

The public clock chimed noon, and Bruce knocked their foreheads together, saying regretfully, “I have to go.” He grinned mischievously. “If word’s already gotten out, I’m gonna have a dozen pissed-off Wayne family lawyers to appease right about now.”

“Is it going to be ok?” asked Clark.

And Bruce laughed, his teeth flashing beautifully. “Everything is going to be ok. I’ll see you tonight.”

He left, phone to his ear, and Alfred pulled up to the curb just as he reached it, as smooth as a choreographed dance.

Clark walked on marshmallows all the way back to his office, and when Perry bellowed at him to explain where he’d been, he surprised his boss with a bear hug.

“What the hell are you grinning about, Kent?” Perry nearly squeaked, eyes bulging.

“Just happy,” he replied, then promptly ordered pizza for everyone in the office. Pizza was pie and pie was similar to cake, right?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much for reading! Sorry if this chapter seems a bit rushed. Life is a little crazy and sleep-deprived now!


	16. Something New

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bruce takes Clark home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No copyright infringement intended!

Clark dropped the last box onto the Lakehouse’s hardwood floor. It made a satisfying thump, its contents good and heavy: old but treasured _Planet_ publications and dusty brown folder files.

“Well, here we are,” he said, dusting his hands off. “All packed up. Horse and carriage.”

Bruce – all rolled-up shirtsleeves and charmingly tousled hair, looking like a soap opera heartbreaker – took Clark by the shoulders and, humming Sinatra, slow-danced them around the scattered luggage that comprised his apartment life. Most of it was still back in Metropolis, the dinged-up IKEA furniture, the bent silverware, the ever-reluctant coffeemaker that spat and hissed like an angry cat on a cold morning. But the essentials were here.

They had spent the better part of an evening moving Clark in. It was almost comical, the two of them hauling apple boxes and milk crates of belongings into Bruce’s sleek Aston Martin, double parked and blinking on the narrow Metropolis street. The dowdy and patchy, trying to fit in with the glossy and expensive. Then, the grand finale, a two-person scuffle to shove the battered bike into the backseat without damaging the beautiful leather interior, both stubbornly insisting they could _make it fit,_ then giving up and promising to come back for it with a proper bike rack.

“I, uh, picked this up earlier,” said Clark, sheepishly but proudly presenting a bottle of Prosecco. “Surprise.”

Bruce peered at the label and made an _mm-hmm_ sound. “You know, I have much better stuff somewhere in-”

“No, you don’t,” Clark insisted, thumping Bruce lightly in the chest with the bottle.

“No, I don’t,” Bruce relented, grinning. “Thank you.” He produced a pair of gorgeous diamond cut champagne flutes and they toasted out of those. The glasses came out of a locked cabinet by way of a tiny silver key, and Clark wondered if the pair were a relic, if those cool rims had ever touched Martha and Thomas Wayne’s mouths on a wedding night long ago. 

A squirrelly scrounge through the fridge resulted in olives, hard cheese, a baguette, and pungent European sausage. Clark toasted some bread and fried a few eggs and they set themselves up on the couch and had a picnic. It wasn’t until the dishes were cleared that Bruce remembered that, _crap_ , Alfred left two tin-foiled portions of coq au vin in the oven. There were quick promises to throw it in the fridge later.

“I missed you,” said Clark, curled up to Bruce, their bodies a comfortable Twister game of hands and laps and ankles under Clark’s favorite fleece. He raised his head a few inches from Bruce’s shoulder and his lips brushed stubbled chin. “You’ve been gone so long. What did you do all this time?”

“It’s… a long story. I’ll tell you everything. Just… not now. I just want to be with you now.”

Clark sighed contentedly. “Yeah.” He gave Bruce’s chin a barely-there kiss, loving the smell of him, the silent strength of his body. “I missed you,” he said again, his voice quietly urgent. Bruce only had to turn his head downwards, and then they were kissing. Bruce was overly gentle, lips so soft and tender, like he was asking for permission, but their kisses always turned hungry and needy, no matter how gently they started out. He felt a phantom brush of Bruce’s tongue, begging for entrance, and he opened his mouth, moaning softly as Bruce entered him.

Their bodies surged against each other in pulses, a prelude to making love. One of Bruce’s hands was on his chest, the heat of it going straight through his ribcage and into his thumping heart, the other straying down to his thigh. He felt his legs opening, inviting.

But then the hand on his chest pushed down gently but firmly and they fell apart, Clark making a needy _uhn_ sound.

“Clark,” Bruce said, his voice concerned. It was the weight of that concern that dispelled the fantasy: that nothing was wrong. That the last two months had never happened and they had just bypassed all the hurt and the darkness to skip right to the happy ending.

He remembered waking up on the morning of his father’s funeral, that blissful innocent moment of wakefulness when he was still half in his dreams before the clarity that came with the dawn: _today is a bad day._

Bruce was murmuring a cottony-soft stream of words, _just wanna make sure you’re ok,_ while stroking his face, and Clark blurted out, “I need to tell you something.”

It physically hurt to remove himself from Bruce, disentangling himself and putting a few crucial inches between them made him sore with longing. But he needed that handspan of space like he needed a clear head.

Bruce was looking at him, so expectant and worried, so he started talking, tongue thick in his mouth. “Something happened. Something I did that I need to tell you. It was back when… well, you know. When they… had me.” He stole a look at Bruce before refocusing his attention on a crease in the blanket.

“They… did things to me. Intimate things. I know you know about some of it. You have to believe me, I didn’t _want_ any of it, I didn’t. But… some of the things they did… When I was _with_ him, I… I didn’t mean to, but I…”

“They made you come,” Bruce said bluntly.

“Yes,” he whispered, and was surprised when a tear rolled unexpectedly down his cheek. He suddenly felt like an over-filled water balloon, one prick would send him gushing.

Bruce looked stricken. “Clark,” he said determinedly. “It wasn’t your fault. You have to know that, it wasn’t-”

“I know, I know, but I… I just… I feel wrong about it. Can you understand that?” He ended on a dry sob, clapping a hand to his mouth.

Then Bruce was shushing him, gently laying his head on a strong shoulder, _it’s ok, it’s ok._ Soothing him. Babying him. Then Bruce’s voice was as warm as it was icy when he whispered into Clark’s ear, “Tell me you want them dead, and I’ll bring you their organs.”

It chilled him, actually raised his hairs on end, to hear words that could have come straight from the Joker’s mouth. Thug’s words. Words from some simmering, animalistic darkness within that licked its fangs and waited for blood.

“That’s pretty gross,” he blurted, the first thing that came to his mind. And then, after swallowing hard, “I thought Batman didn’t kill.”

 “I’m not speaking as Batman,” said Bruce. “I’m speaking as your husband.” And that somehow made it worse.

“It’s not what I want. It’s _not_.” He pressed Bruce’s hand urgently, moved it to his lips for a kiss. “All I want is… you. You have to understand that. No killing, no revenge. Just you, here with me. That’s all.”

“You have me,” said Bruce, touching a curl of his hair, his jaw, his chin. “I’m right here.” His hand lingered on Clark’s face and Clark, suddenly touch-starved, guided Bruce to touch him more, be bolder. They ended up kissing again, and when Bruce paused and asked, “is this ok?” Clark nodded, eagerly, and pulled him closer.

Eventually, they moved to the bedroom and Bruce set him down on the mattress gently. “Do you want me to…?”

“Yes,” whispered Clark. He felt parched for Bruce’s touch, physically sick for it. Nothing else mattered at the moment.

Bruce undressed him, slowly, tenderly, unwrapping a gift and keeping the paper intact. He spent a long time kissing and touching Clark in the most innocent places, his ear, the inside of his wrists, his ankles, mouthing at them and stroking with delicate fingertips. It was intoxicating, but it wasn’t enough.

He slid a hand between Bruce’s legs, loosened those tailored trousers, and was surprised at how aroused Bruce was, rock-hard and slick. Bruce never made any obvious signs of arousal, no groaning or _yeah baby_ ’s; except for the heavy-lidded eyes and slack jaw, he looked perfectly in control. There was no build-up, no getting sweaty and crazy. So, it was always a (pleasant) surprise to see how hard Bruce was, how much he wanted Clark.

“I want it,” Clark whispered upwards, eyes closed. “Please. I want you inside me.”

And there was no pain or fear when Bruce pressed his weight down on him, cupping him and working into him with fingers and tongue, soothing him each time he gasped, and then finally, slowly, entering him. Each thrust felt like coming home.

He moaned Bruce’s name, clutching helplessly at broad shoulders, lean back and buttocks, breath hitching as Bruce’s thrusts became more erratic, deeper and harder.

Bruce had never used pet names, for which he was grateful. No _sweetheart_ , or _gorgeous_ , or the universal _baby_. “ _Clark_ ,” Bruce groaned deeply, thrusting hard into him as he came, and it was earth-shatteringly intimate and erotic, his name on Bruce’s lips, reverberating through his chest. It was pure ecstasy.

He fell fast asleep cradled in Bruce’s arms, cheek against chest, and dreamt nothing but sweet blackness.

In the morning, Bruce made him a cup of coffee in bed and they lazed around until the sun became blinding. They showered together, kissing in the decadent spray, staying in far longer than they needed to. They devoured the cold remains of Alfred’s prepared dinners and then a whole container of ice cream, then ordered pizza while making lazy plans to move the rest of Clark’s stuff from Metropolis, maybe pick up a good ol’ fashioned print newspaper and some oysters, maybe have an afternoon drink at Clark’s favorite pub. Bruce put on a record and tugged Clark to lie on the couch with him, simultaneously promising that _alright, alright_ they’d get up soon and _start the dang day_. More slow kisses.

 _I love him, I love him, I love him,_ Clark thought giddily, the whole time. _I love him and I’m finally home_.

X

The kid at the end of the boardroom was starting to gesticulate, his mouth snapping open and shut, looking like an agitated puppet on strings. Bruce hid a yawn.

“Mr. Wayne, I know this line of business doesn’t seem profitable now, but if you could just see things from the _big picture_ perspective…” His voice turned into a trombonish _waahh-wahhh_ in Bruce’s ears. The graphic on the projector screen blurred into rainbow mishmash.

Jack, seated at his right, looked sideways at him and gave him a sardonic smile. _Can you believe this guy?_

Coughlin was smart, he’d admit it. Smart and hardworking, enough to get upper management’s attention and make it into the boardroom. He lacked the lazy, polished confidence of someone born into privilege, but had the insistent hunger of someone who fought hard to get what he wanted. Problem was, he didn’t know when to stop fighting, no matter how many politely worded hints Bruce dropped.

“I’m sorry,” Bruce said abruptly, stopping the kid mid-sentence. “You’ve… obviously worked really hard on this, but we’re just not sold.”

Coughlin’s expression shifted from agitated to betrayed, then to the simmering outrage of someone unable to take no for an answer.

“But Mr. Wayne, this is an _up and coming_ area of business, this company needs to jump on this _right now_ , or…”

“This _company_ was founded by my family and we’ve been running it the same way for longer than you’ve been alive, son.”

“But-”

“We’re a conservative business. Always have been. We don’t like unnecessary risks. If you can’t accept that, then well, maybe this isn’t the right place for you.” He started gathering the loose papers on the table in front of him, passing them to his assistant to slip into a sleek leather sleeve. He turned to talk to Jack, a blatant sign of dismissal.

“ _Unnecessary risk_?” said Coughlin in a vicious half-undertone. “Talk about unnecessary risk. What about screwing around with that reporter, huh? No prenup, how d’you think _that’ll_ affect the company?”

Bruce’s face turned icy. If looks could kill, rubber-gloved policemen would be scraping what was left of Coughlin off the walls with a Q-Tip. The rest of the room was a mixture of shock, disgusted shock, and delighted _ooh, he’s gonna get it_ shock.  

The kid turned that particular shade of ashy green criminals got when they saw Batman, all slack-jawed and pop-eyed, then stammered one cut-off apology after another until Jack just sighed and said, “You wanna get out of here, son?”

Bruce’s glare remained after the door snicked shut, burning a hole into the polished wood, then remained even as Jack cleared his throat and started leading the room into another discussion. He only snapped out of it when he felt his phone buzz. It was neither his work nor social contact, but his personal cell that only Alfred (and now Clark) had access to.

“Excuse me a minute,” he mumbled, then rose smoothly and left through the door that connected to his office.

“What is it, Alfred?” he said, a hand on the window that overlooked the city.

“It’s Clark,” said Alfred, his voice soft and urgently.

“What happened? Is he _safe_?”

“I think you’d better come over here.”

X

The sun was just setting when he came up to the Lakehouse, the colors masked by a fuzzy gray sky. He saw Alfred through the glass and made a straight shot to kitchen as soon as he entered.

“What happened?”

There were two shank steaks defrosting on a plate. He smelled butter, and a slight acidic sting in the air, something like tomato puree. He glanced into the trash and saw a crumpled mass of brown paper, a shard of smashed porcelain peeking out between the wrinkles. On it, a red spot of tomato residue.

“I was serving a late lunch,” said Alfred. “And he had a… panic attack of some kind. He was upset.”

“Did he hurt you?”

“No,” Alfred said quickly. “The only casualty was a rather ugly piece of china. I’m thankful, really.”

“Where is he now?”

“I checked surveillance about half an hour ago. He ah… went to the house. I stopped looking after that. Thought he should have his privacy.”

“Thank you, Alfred,” said Bruce, sincerely grateful. On pained impulse, he hugged his dignified butler, who looked a little embarrassed when he pulled back.

“Ahem, best you go to him.”

“Yeah.”

“Take this. Never hurts.”

He was handed a stainless-steel wire serving basket with two stainless-steel cups, a carafe of hot chocolate, and a stiffly folded white towel.

It bumped playfully against his leg as he made his way up to the old manor, urging him onwards. He waded through the foxtails, their fuzzy fingers swatting him, then clambered up the cracked front steps and shoved the door open one-handed. It gave easier than he expected, probably loosened earlier by Clark, and he had to catch himself, the cups clanging agitatedly against each other. He took a last look over his shoulder at the car parked at the end of the driveway, swallowed, then stepped into his childhood home.

It didn’t take long to find Clark. Bruce’s intuition was correct, Clark was in the parlor where they’d both spent the night all those months ago, hunkered down at the foot of a ghost-sheeted sofa. He’d cobbled together a weak fire in the grate, the orange flickers making him look shadowy, ghostly. He looked _rattled_ in the most literal possible sense, like someone had actually taken him and shook him until his teeth clattered and his neck popped. He looked up slightly, not making eye contact, when Bruce entered, then dropped his head to his chest again, his hair falling into his eyes. An acknowledgement, but not a greeting.

Bruce had a sudden picture of teenaged Clark, troubled and lonely, in the same position back at the farmhouse in Kansas, one knee cocked, arms hugged tight, back smushed into the corner of a piece of furniture. Was he gangly and stick-thin in his youth, with more limbs than he knew what to do with? Or did he still wear his baby fat late into his teens, dimples popping in a round face every time he smiled? Or had he been just as beautiful as he was now, perfect inside and out, no matter what the world did to him? Bruce shut down that train of thought when the mental image of Clark kept morphing into himself at 13, cross-legged and angular, face and fists clenched while Alfred called for him, trying to coax him out of whatever corner of the manor he’d squirreled off to. 

“Hey,” Bruce said softly, coming up alongside Clark uneasily, like he was trying to sneak up on an animal. No response, not even a nod. For a moment, Bruce wished hard, so hard his heart ached in his ribcage, that he knew the right words. Bruce Wayne could schmooze with the best of them. Batman could threaten and intimidate with the worst. In all his forms, artifice was second nature. But an honest heart-to-heart, real emotions, real words to comfort people… those were tough battles for him.

“Alfred made some hot chocolate. First class. Want some?”

No response. 

“You’re right. Not strong enough.”

Bruce sat down the hot chocolate kit on the carpet, then went to the second painting to the left of the fireplace. The painting was too faded for him to see what the original picture was, but it slid sideways to reveal his father’s hidden drinks cabinet. Though he’d inherited (and sometimes indulged in) its contents for decades now, he still thought of it as his _father_ ’s drinks cabinet. The door opened and shut with a rubber sucking sound, sealing the temperature-controlled air inside as he took out a very old bottle of scotch, its label medicinal-looking.

He cracked the bottle then poured two tumblers, hands shaking slightly, then brought them back to an unresponsive Clark. “Drink with me?”

No response.

Right. Clark hated scotch. He’d forgotten that. What a lousy spouse.

Feeling self-disgusted, Bruce gulped a fortune’s worth of King George, then folded himself awkwardly to sit next to Clark. He longed to hold Clark, wanted Clark’s slumped bulk in his arms so badly it hurt. He settled for touching the back of Clark’s neck, working at the stiffness there with gentle fingers. “I’m here for you,” he said, and then wished wildly he could have been through everything Clark had, all the suffering and pain and fear, just so he could know what it was like.

“Is Alfred ok?” Clark spoke finally, his voice a hoarse whisper.

Bruce smiled gently, tilting his head in an attempt to peer at Clark’s face. “Yeah. No worries. He’s had much worse from me.” He sighed softly when there was no response. “Listen, my original offer still stands if you-”

“I don’t want his damn pancreas, Bruce, I want him out of my head!” Clark yelled suddenly. Then panted, shaken and pale.

Bruce froze for a moment, staring hard at the grit on the floorboards. Then said, trying for lightness, “I’m, uh, fresh out of pancreas at the moment. I was talking about the hot chocolate.”

Clark made a soft huffing noise that Bruce sure hoped was a laugh instead of a sob. “Did you know,” Clark said after a tense silence, his voice thick like he was working up phlegm instead of words, his face tight and pained as if the very air hurt him, “I can’t even… I can’t _stand_ it when Mom calls me Sweetheart. It makes my blood run cold. Because _he_ used to call me that. Like I was his _pet_.” Then, so low it was almost a growl, “ _They made me crawl_.”

And Bruce didn’t dare to speak then, because if he so much as opened his mouth, red, belligerent, blood-soaked things would spill out. Things that Clark hated. He wanted to maim. He wanted to kill. There was a flash of blood and broken teeth in his memory, then Joker’s lisping, wet laugh. _Joke’s on you, Batman! Joke’s on you!_ Red spit. White fragments.

Self-loathing gnawed at him. For all his justice and honor, the man at the core of his being, the real Bruce Wayne, was still a thug that wanted blood for blood. 

 _Compassion_ , the ghost of his mother’s voice whispered into his air, so present that he almost felt his hair stir. A long-forgotten word. He felt sad, drained.

He saw Clark slump, and then he couldn’t stand not holding him anymore. He gathered Clark into his arms, tucked Clark’s head against his shoulder, kissing his hair, his forehead, desperate for touch, not even sure which of them was being comforted. 

“Whatever happens,” he said, after Clark had stopped shaking, “I’m here. You’ve got me. Always. Whatever it is, we’ll face it together. Whatever you need, as long as it’s in my power, I’ll give it to you. I swear.”

 _I love you, Clark Kent,_ he thought. _You don’t know how much_.

Clark sniffled a little, then burrowed deeper into him. “I love you too,” he said, and Bruce startled a little, that Clark was responding to an unspoken thought. But it wasn’t really that unexpected. Clark could always read him in the most pleasantly surprising ways.

“Do the dreams ever stop?” Clark asked.

“They get better,” he replied, looking down at Clark’s face. “Mine did, when I met you.” He whispered into Clark’s hair, “You’re my world, you know,” and felt Clark smile, finally exhaling, limbs loosening, muscles slackening.

He felt a cold hand seeking out his own. He snagged it and held it until it was warm again, watching the sunset creep through the clouds outside, leaving rosy smears of light on the faded carpet, the floor creaking with each little movement like the house was chattering to them, his lower back aching slightly but him not caring. The chocolate steamed in the air and eventually, Clark reached for it and poured a cup.

“Hey,” said Bruce, pointing out the window at a square stoop of stone on the side of the paved walkway. “Know what that is? It’s the old school way for tying up horses when they’d ride up to the house. My grandfather kept a few back in the day. I remember them from when I was a kid. They had sweet faces. Do you like horses?”

“Sure, I’ll eat anything,” said Clark, his voice subdued but playful.

“Hah. Yeah.”

“We never had horses on the farm. I always wanted one, though.”

“We’ll have horses then,” Bruce said, nodding. “We can rebuild the stable house. Spruce up the grounds, get some new grass in. Renovate the house, a little at a time.”

“You want to do that?”

“Yeah. Rebuild. Start something new.”

“Something new. That sounds really good.”

“You’ll like the library when it’s all fixed up. We can restore the artwork. The chandeliers.”

“Fancy.”

“Anything you’d like. We can make it our own.”

“That… sounds really good.”

It did sound good. He held the world in his arms, and everything was good.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sooooo sorry for the long hiatus!!!!! Please forgive me! I'm also sorry if there were any comments along that way that I haven't responded to. I really, really appreciate all those who took the time to read this story. It's pretty much done, but there will be an epilogue and the ongoing Batman and Clark series. 
> 
> For this chapter, I tried to show them both healing with each other and deepening their relationship (or trying to). Bruce isn't perfect at it, but he, like some people I know in my own life, loves deeply but isn't always able to express it in an open way. 
> 
> If anyone is still reading this one, thank you so much for sticking with it! As always, feedback highly appreciated!


	17. Wedding

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clark and Bruce finally throw a wedding party.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No copyright infringement intended, no profits made!

“Is that… what I think it is?” Clark was looking up at the giant wedding cake suspended from the ceiling like a chandelier. At first glance, one could almost mistake it for a regular chandelier. Numerous crystal pendants swung from behemoth, sugared layers, winking with reflected light; you could almost hear the cartoonish _ting-ting_ as you passed underneath it.

“Don’t start quoting health codes at me,” Bruce said, smiling out the corner of his mouth.

“I wasn’t gonna,” Clark said defensively.

The cake was a master of engineering, its inverted layers held in place by rigid dowels and steel pins, suspended from the vaulted ceiling of Wayne Manor’s grand ballroom, and dripping with jewels so that it flashed in the light like a real chandelier. Each slice of cake would be served with a loop of silver and Viennese crystals, to be taken home as a party favor. It was a ludicrous, expensive gimmick, but Bruce thought it was worth it to see Clark going moony-eyed.

Clark himself had nothing to do with the wedding preparations. (Wedding _reception_ , really, since it took place months after the fact and there would be no ceremony of any kind. It was more of a fancy party with an open bar and too many people.) He’d been spared by Bruce after their first meeting with the wedding planner. A small, flamboyant man in an ascot had sat them down on an ivory sweetheart couch with much _oohing_ and _ahhing_ and hand waving, then rapid-fired cake choices at them – Meyer lemon chiffon, Grand Marnier infused icing, crème de menthe infused fondant with gold leaf – each more ridiculous than the next. Clark had turned red, then went puff-cheeked and duck-lipped, actually _pouting_ like some grade-school kid put on the spot with a math problem he couldn’t solve, and mumbled, “Can’t we just get something chocolate?”    

That made Bruce snort-laugh – in fondness, of course – and he squeezed Clark’s hand apologetically and directed the wedding planner to only communicate through himself and Alfred. The months-after result was a gleaming gala that cost a fortune and with a bigger turnout than either of them expected or wanted.

It was planned as an elegant family-only affair. So, Clark invited his friends and family, and then his extended family, and then his extended family’s extended family, including four dogs and a pet gopher. This show of good ol’ fashioned Midwestern kinship pressured Bruce into tracking down whatever Waynes were still left in the state. He ended up inviting a distant cousin who ran a shady business two towns over, who may or may not actually be related to him. And Alfred’s whist buddies. And their grandchildren. Then Clark invited Lois and his boss Perry White, and his co-workers Lombard and Jenny and Lenny and Denny and Penny, and then the entire editing staff because _they work so hard, Bruce, editors are humans too, you know_. So, it was only fair for Bruce to invite Jack and his family, and the other senior partners, and his long-suffering assistant Grace. Then the so-called friends of the Wayne family – socialites and moguls and lawyers –  had to be sorted through and sent an electronic invite at the least, or they’d be insulted. And don’t forget Clark’s baseball team, heaven forbid they forgot Clark’s baseball team.

They renovated Wayne Manor, an undertaking that lasted the better part of a year and ended up half-done by the time of the party. The ballroom and library, the foyer, the grand staircase with the ornate newel post, had all been restored to gleaming, old-world richness. The terrace and the flagstone pathway leading up to it had been completely resurfaced. Clark had actually rented a jackhammer and gone out whistling one morning with orange earmuffs and safety goggles, planning to do it all by hand before Bruce stopped him. He had to plead with Clark to _just let the contractors handle it, I’ll buy you an abandoned parking lot if you need to rip something up so bad,_ on more than one occasion.

The façade had largely remained its burnt, damaged self, but they set up floodlights in plummy colors and against the night sky, it looked gothic and dreamy.

“Well, Bruce,” said Clark, looking kind of helplessly around at their surroundings. “This is…”

“Ostentatious?”

“It’s nice, it really is. But… yeah.”

“Hey, go big or go home.”

“S’that right?” He smiled that million-dollar smile, the one that made Bruce’s brain lose its edge, go fuzzy.

He pulled Clark close and muttered into his ear, “Of course, if I’d had my way, we’d be skipping straight to the honeymoon. We could be in the tropics right about now, drinking Mai Tai’s on a little beach I bought for your wedding present.”

“Come on, Bruce. We had to throw _something_ for my Mom’s sake. She’d never talk to me again otherwise.”

“Or maybe in Iceland,” he continued teasing, his lips just shy of Clark’s skin. “You and me, soaking up hot springs and espressos, watching the snow fall. Naked, of course…”

“Hi, Mom!” Clark said brightly over Bruce’s shoulder.

Martha, salt of the earth Martha, had snuck up on them, smiling fondly, hands folded primly around a navy-blue clutch. The leather looked too crisp and unyielding for it to be old, so she must have bought it new to match her dress. She wore a single pearl on a silver chain –it was slightly off-center from the hollow of her throat – that Clark had bought her on his journalist’s salary, despite the fact that Bruce’s fortune was now at his disposal.

“Honey,” she greeted Clark, then, “Bruce.”

As Bruce bent to kiss her cheek, his mind pictured the pearl sliding off her neck, past smooth, blood-speckled collarbones and a flailing hand, to bounce – clickety clack – onto a stained sidewalk. _Martha,_ a ghost of a memory whispered at him.

“Martha,” he said, smiling wide to hide the years-old shiver that rattled down his spine. It must have come out too smug because her return smile was tight-lipped.

They exchanged pleasantries – _how was the flight, you look beautiful, so glad you’re here, did you see the chocolate fountain, don’t forget to sign the guestbook –_ and he made his excuses to leave mother and son alone together, angling himself towards another cluster of guests.

“Well, he doesn’t do things by half, does he?” he heard her mutter as he edged away from them. A cork popped festively somewhere to their left, followed by the fizz and glug of champagne against crystal saucers, and she wrinkled her nose, as if Bruce’s wealth offended her. 

Unbeknownst to either her or Clark, Bruce had acquired the holding company that was about to foreclose on the Kents’ farm and house and auction off their faithful tractor. The Kansas-based bank had been snapping at Martha’s heels, hungry for cash she didn’t have, when the real estate division of Wayne Financial had swooped in and gulped up the smaller company and its anxious, yapping threats. An adjusted interest rate, two extensions, and a partial debt forgiveness later, and Clark’s mother had her home back. He didn’t tell her, of course. Martha Kent was not one to be willingly beholden to anyone.

“But are you _happy?_ ” A fragment of her conversation with Clark reached him as he schmoozed with an immaculately-politician and his slinky girlfriend.

Are you _happy_? That all-important, look him in the eyes and grab him by the lapels question.  He saw Clark nodding emphatically, murmuring a chiding _Yes, Mom,_ but his thoughts had already soured and turned sticky.

Clark was happy, but could he keep Clark happy? Bruce’s record was against him, a long memory of discarded people, broken hearts and furious tears, even objects thrown at his head. He had trouble maintaining relationships. And in Martha Kent’s eyes, in the eyes of most of the world, he was still that smarmy rich bastard who’d abandoned Clark for a month to chase tutus.

“I’m going to, uh… get some air,” he said vaguely, and smilingly excused himself.

 

X

The night had barely begun and Alfred had already chased two canoodling couples out of the upstairs room. Only the ballroom, library, and foyer were open to the public. The rest of Wayne Manor was closed off like unopened exhibits in a museum. But that hadn’t stopped the adventurous.

The giggles were still echoing through Martha Wayne’s music room as he cleaned up a red wine spill, nearly growling at the magenta stain left behind on her piano. Something nipped at his ankles. He looked down into three sets of glowing eyes. The cats had followed him.

Someone had put black tuxedo bows on two of them and a white beribboned collar on Spock, the female of the trio. He wondered who was responsible, as neither Clark – who was too down to earth – nor Bruce – who was too… _Bruce_ – were the type to play dress up with animals.

They miaowed piteously up at him, as if they hadn’t just dined like kings on pâté and shrimp. Clark spoiled them.

“That’s quite enough,” he scolded, and shooed them off, still whining.

He carried a discarded pair of wine glasses over to the door, intent on returning to his duties at the party, but found himself lingering over a painting on the wall. It depicted Martha Wayne reclining in a lawn chair outdoors, surrounded by greenery. There was no shortage of portraits in Wayne Manor, but he liked this one best. Though half her face was in shadow, the slant of her head, the curve of her hand brought up to shield her face from the sun, her hair in the breeze, were purely Martha, more than any of the austere, photo-realistic paintings in the family gallery could portray.

The crooning notes of a song floated up from downstairs, a truly mediocre country singer that Clark liked that Bruce had flown in from out of state. The song ended with a flourish, followed by cheers and a crack of applause. Something loosened in Alfred’s chest, in his shoulders, and he sighed as if a weight had been lifted.

“My work is done,” he whispered to Martha. Then straightened his collar and left, closing the door behind him.

He stopped short when he saw Bruce leaning against the wall in the hallway. “Master Wayne?”

“Shouldn’t you be at the party, Alfred?”

“Yes, well… some of the guests got a little _too_ merry and I had to-”

Bruce made a waving motion. “I don’t mean working.”

“Seems I can’t help myself.”

Bruce smiled ruefully. “I know.”

He hadn’t been a child for a very long time, but Alfred couldn’t look at him and not picture the hurt, pale eight-year-old Bruce that had run off for the woods during his parents’ funeral. The damaged child that still lived beneath the man he’d grown into. But for the first time since he became the last surviving Wayne, Bruce looked… healed. The pain, lurking behind those child’s eyes – even though they were now pinched with wrinkles of past decades – was finally gone.

“I’m… happy for you,” said Alfred. “Truly.”

“Thank you, old friend,” said Bruce, nodding once. Then he engulfed Alfred in a hug, almost making him drop the wine glasses. “For everything.”

X

The country singer was taking a break by the time Bruce made his way back to the ballroom. A string quartet had started up and it was Lois who first pulled him into a dance. He scanned the crowds for Clark as they sashayed across the polished floor, red hair and a spangly earing in the corner of his vision.

“You look happy,” said Lois with a smile, studying him, watching him being distracted. “I’m glad he makes you happy.” 

It caught him off-guard somewhat, that someone voiced his happiness as a concern. She hugged him when the number was over and pointed him towards the cocktail bar, “He’s over there, with Steve.”

Steve. Tall, blond, and handsome Steve, with the military-straight back. Steve, who was standing in Clark’s space, laughing at something Clark said. The two other men Bruce recognized from the hospital were there as well, all of them holding matching pilsner glasses. 

Bruce sauntered over and interjected himself between Clark and the other man like a wedge. “Hi, I don’t believe we met.”

“Oh hi, I’m Steve!” Big goofy grin, nice teeth.

“Friend of Clark’s?”

“Yes, longtime.”

“You served together?”

“Hah, no. I was army. Kent got the cushy air force job.”

“Cushy?” Clark spoke up, mock-offended. He shoved playfully at Steve. “You wanna rassle, Grasshopper?”

Bruce’s jaw tightened. He’d heard Martha call Clark that nickname once or twice but didn’t realize the moniker extended to Goofy Blond as well.

“So you knew him from Smallville?” Bruce drawled deliberately. “You a farmer?”

Goofy Blond threw his head back and laughed. “No, I’m a city boy through and through. But I’ve helped out at the Kents’ sometimes. During calving season, s’that right, Clark?” He took Bruce’s hand and shook, blue eyes narrowing slightly. “I bet I’ve castrated more of them than you.”

_Don’t squeeze, don’t squeeze_ , Bruce reminded himself, _don’t be that guy, don’t be an amateur._ But Steve clenched and he clenched back and they were both white-knuckling each other, Clark eyeing them nervously, until another guy stepped in.

“Man, don’t be talking about nutsacks. It’s not that kind of party.” He elbowed Steve, who let go. “I’m Sam. Nice to meet you.” 

“Pleasure,” Bruce relented, and shook hands more gently with this one.

A flash of color in his periphery, a red smile aimed deliberately at him. He turned and stared at the beautiful dark-haired woman at the corner of the room. “Excuse me,” he murmured, and made his way over to her.

“Mr. Wayne,” she said in a fuzzy voice that managed to be sexy and cute at the same time. She was wearing a backless red dress and stood almost at his own height. 

“I do believe you’re trespassing, Miss,” he said, smiling and casually angling his shoulder between her and the French window. “Don’t remember seeing you on the guest list.”

“Diana,” she offered. “And you’re no stranger to trespassing, are you, Bruce?”

He leaned in closer, boxing her in. “So you’re a wedding crashing _and_ a thief. The other night you took that doesn’t belong to you. Stealing’s not polite.”

She smiled at him. He could hear a self-satisfied hum from her throat. “Is it stealing if you steal from another thief?” She sauntered past him but he took her elbow and spun them around like they were dancing, swaying to the music.

“Who are you?” he murmured, a smirk plastered to his face so it looked like they were just making conversation.

“Someone interested in the same man you are.”

“Is that right?”

A while ago, he’d attended a benefit thrown by Lex Luthor. Despite Lois’ warnings, he’d snuck into Luthor’s server room and attached a leech to his system. Only to find it missing when he’d tried to retrieve it, taken by the woman in front of him.

“What are you doing here?” he asked her, turning his head to nod at one of the other guests.

“I came to return it to you. I didn’t steal your drive. I borrowed it.” She leaned in close, the air between them moist with perfume, “You’ll find it in the glove compartment of your car.” Pulled back with another plush smile.

“Hi Bruce,” Clark said loudly, suddenly appearing at his elbow. He took Bruce’s hand rather aggressively, then after a beat of silence, kissed him deliberately but awkwardly on the cheek. Then nodded at Diana with a stiff, “Ma’am.”

Bruce smirked and made a shrugging motion.

“This is a beautiful wedding,” she said warmly to Clark. “I wish you happiness. And you, Mr. Wayne. Good evening.” She sidestepped them gracefully and strode off.

“Who was that?” said Clark, eyeing her legs as she walked away, then eyeing Bruce.

“Cousin or something,” said Bruce.

When the clock struck eight, the staff started to herd the guests to their tables for the dinner. As tuxedoed waiters served blood-red cuts of beef and poured wine, Bruce went dutifully to the middle of the room for his speech.

“I want to tell you all our love story,” he said, flashing his patrician smile at the masses. Cameras went off. Someone cheered. “The story of how a rich man who had everything he could ask for, met someone whose life was much poorer, someone who needed to be rescued from his squalid, empty life. I was that poor man, and when I met Clark, he made my life rich.”

There scattered _awww_ ’s and a few claps. He glanced over to where Clark was seated with Lois and Martha. Lois was subtly rolling her eyes at him – _wow, did you come up with that yourself? –_  and Martha was buttering a roll, looking unimpressed. But there was Clark, mouth open in a breathless smile, eyes pinned on him and him alone, and looking like he was hanging on every word Bruce spoke.

“I… when I first met Clark, I was…” his voice trailed off. The rehearsed words smeared together in his head; he couldn’t find them anymore in the face of true adoration, of hopeless, reckless love.

All he could see was Clark, and he was fixated on that mouth. The mouth that slurped its S’s when Clark got excited, the mouth that chewed pens obliviously when Clark was concentrating, the mouth that thinned and pouted in equal measure when Clark got angry.

Before he knew it, Bruce was striding across the ballroom, not stopping until he reached _him_ , and he was kissing that infuriating, smiling mouth, and Clark was laughing into the kiss. Someone was clinking silverware against a glass, like a judge calling for order, and the room had erupted into chattering, but Bruce’s world was only _this_ , only _him._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So sorry (again!) for the long hiatus!!!! The story is pretty much at its end. There's just an epilogue to go, but I do plan to continue the ongoing series, Batman and Clark. Thank you SO MUCH to everyone for sticking with this story and giving your wonderful support!


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